


Paradox Wolf

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mild Non-con elements, Multi, Paradox, Parallel Universes, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 08:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 64,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles' story is a lot like Stiles--odd, complicated, and hard to follow. It begins in the middle and concludes right after the beginning.</p><p>For short: ghosts, dreams that are more than they seem, displacement in time, parallel universes, and that good old cliche, the power of love.</p><p>And, of course, a paradox wolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Heart of the Story

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this thing was a long time in coming...I wrote it, my brain imploded, and then I forgot about it for a few months.  
> I figured it was finally time to share.
> 
> As a warning: It's reaaaally rough around the edges. Like, imagine it to be hewn from stone by a surprisingly sharp shovel. But it isn't getting any shinier gathering metaphorical dust on my hard drive.

  
  


# Paradox Wolf Vol. 1: The Heart of the Story

  
  


  
  


Stiles Stillinski was a doodler, and he was fine with that. After years of scribbling on everything in sight, from walls when he as a toddler to shoes and flesh currently, he had come to terms with the fact that he was just a doodler and there was no way he could change that.

Bored in class? He doodled.

It pissed off the teachers, but it actually helped him remember all the crap that they were rambling on and on about.

Bored out of his mind and procrastinating on homework or doing something else he really didn't want to do? He started drawing swirls and sharp lines until they connected and formed into strange designs that he tried to define but often couldn't.

At a restaurant with his dad lecturing him about the importance of paying attention in class and taking his education seriously?

Well, he'd draw a dragon swooping down from the sky and attacking a small village clustered around the juncture of his elbow and up his forearm.

Until his dad noticed, slowed down his tired, oft rehashed lecture and took his wrist, studying his scribbled handiwork with that all too familiar worried, face-lining way he had. He glanced up from Stiles arm to his flushing, guilty face, and the worry slid away and was replaced with either an air of failure or wry amusement. It was weird that Stiles couldn't tell the difference.

"Not bad," he said softly, "but try to stick to paper." He let go of Stiles' hand and grabbed a french fry, drowning his worries for his son in greasy and salty goodness.

Stiles surreptitiously slid his art-ified had under the table and tugged his opposite sleeve, covering the ridged brow and slit-pupiled eye, stretching down into a blunt muzzle, a close up on the dragon's dangerous face, on his other arm.

Drawing on skin was just so much more satisfying than paper, napkins, and Styrofoam cups. There was a realness to it, an imprint left over that he guessed he connected with tattoos, even though the ink washed off after a few days, or a few weeks if he wasn't thinking and accidentally used sharpie.

Stiles waited for a few moments longer, but it looked like his dad was through talking.

"You're right, dad, I need to pay more attention and be a better student and a better citizen and maybe i should volunteer or something but can we talk about this later i kind of have something important to do now, so..." He trailed off at the sharp, suspicious look his dad leveled on him.

"You're going to do something with Scott, aren't you?"

"Well, yeah," Stiles said, after feeling his face jump. He was planning on going out and exploring an abandoned hotel, it was supposed to be haunted, with Scott that evening. Since what had happened to him, the weirdness of a few week before, Stiles had been fascinated with it, with anything he couldn't explain. And the sun was starting to sink below the horizon, sending streams and shafts of light into his eyes through the big open windows of the diner. He'd given away that he was going to be with Scott with that jumpy face twitch so he went with it.

"Yea, we have a project to do, for, for history. We have to find a historical figure and talk about what they did, in history, you know." He tried, and failed, not to squirm and tap his fingers on the table as his dad studied him.

The sheriff gave him a long look, and then glanced out the window to see the sun setting behind the nearest buildings, throwing them into the sharp fluorescent glow of the lights overhead.

He grabbed another fry as he thought for a moment. And then he shrugged.

"It's just, you know, the usual, homework.” he tried again.

“Right...” his dad said, glancing out the window again. "Okay sure,"

"Thanks dad I love you you're awesome," he said in a rush already getting up from the table, "I just think I'm going to be late and I really need to go before..."

"Stiles!" He was almost at the door. And that's when Stiles let himself realized that his dad didn’t believe him for a second.

He sighed and dropped his head, heading back to the table.

His dad looked up at him, searching his face for something. But apparently he didn't find it, because he sighed and looked back down at his plate.

"Just don't do anything illegal, alright?" he asked, looking back up at Stiles with his worried face.

Breaking and entering was only a little illegal, right? Especially if your kind of boyfriend owned the place. Right?

Right?

"Aww, dad, I wouldn't dream of it." Stiles said with a reassuring smile.

Which did little to reassure.

"Oh, God. Just...do whatever you're gonna do. I don't want to hear about it."

"You're the best, Dad," he said, pressing down that twinge of guilt as his dad dove into his greasy burger.

Stiles bit his lip. He hated keeping things from his dad, but there was that big thing that his own fear was keeping him from telling, the whole thing with Derek. If he told him that, then at least he wouldn't be lying to him about so many things.

Stiles shoved a handful of fries into his mouth instead.

  
  


It was still hot, even with the sun securely sunken beneath the horizon and the bugs out in all the trees and brush and the nature reserve behind the old, once homey and fancy Inn with its strong columns and peaked, gabled roof. He could see an old wooden sign propped against the brick, the name charred and obscured, but he saw the faint outline of a silver sickle moon. The weeds and brush curled up almost to the walls, but stopped, leaving dry brush and spindly, brittle saplings with dried leaves and roots curling towards the green. It was like a barrier. A few inches away from the inn, all life stopped. The lawns and the flowing trees to the sides were growing wild and flourishing, but the closer to the building he got, the drier and rougher, and deader, the wildlife got.

In the distance, they heard the call of a loon, and the rustling of birds and tiny mammals, and Stiles absently noted that Scott probably heard even more in the silence, in the dead air, as they approached the Inn.

"So, maybe this was a bad idea," he said into the silence, just because he couldn't deal with it anymore. Not as they inched closer and closer to the burnt up frame of the building, hulking like a wounded animal. Some of the walls were still standing, but the roof was partially collapsed on the second floor, so the stairs appeared to lead to nowhere and the downstairs below was crushed.

The wind flowed from the inn towards them, and Stiles caught the smell of fire in the air, of charred wood and ash. His imagination flashed the old building fresh and new, then a little older and consumed, being eaten away, by flames as people ran screaming away. His imagination was too active, and given the events of a few months earlier, the mental flash took on another more worrying shade.

But not all of them had gotten away. He knew that, after snooping through old police reports and getting occasional grudging information out of Derek. Before Derek quickly shut down and ordered him to talk about something else or go away. And he couldn't keep pushing, not with the panic stirring in the back of Derek's eyes, behind the gruff, angry exterior brood.

But that wasn't the reason he decided to investigate.

Well, it wasn't the only reason.

His dad had let slip, in passing, that the cops kept getting complaints about disturbances from the inn. The nearest house was nearly a mile away, but kids sometimes came out and nosed around, his dad had said, when he had showed an interest. But according to the reports, they never found anyone there.

Not a soul.

So Stiles' mind had wandered and traversed the possibilities for a few hours until he had decided to take matters into his own hands.

He knew that werewolves were somehow a real thing, so why not ghosts?

But it wasn't like he could ask Derek about that. Not when he was getting so good at reading him. His mind would probably go to the fire, to the inn, and exactly where Stiles didn't want it to be.

He didn't know which would be worse. If Derek discovered his family was haunting their old inn. Or if he learned they might have left something of themselves on the earth, even just an imprint, and then to learn that it wasn't true. He didn't want Derek to feel that kind of pain, or false hope, that part of them might remain.

So Stiles talked Scott into being his partner in crime, literally, and come investigate the Inn, and to see for themselves if it was haunted or not.

It hadn't been all that hard, really. Just a few well placed comments about going out on his own to a possibly dangerous place, a few comments about his strong werewolf friend maybe coming along with him. And then a few comments about going even if his strong werewolf friend didn't so Scott should stop trying to talk him out of it already and just come, please.

What are friends for, if not going into dangerous situations together and making sure they didn't die?

But Scott's agreement had been half hearted, and Stiles could tell he was nervous. But they were already there, and he wasn't about to chicken out just because of a high level of creepitude.

But Scott wasn't going to take it lying down.

"Why couldn't you get somebody else to come with you? I have...stuff to do."

"Why do I get the feeling that 'stuff' consists of Allison and not much else?"

Scott flushed, but kept pushing. "You could have talked to Derek at least. He owns the place. Or kind of owns it. It was his family's. So why didn't you ask him?"

Stiles tried his best to keep his heart rate under control. Easier said than done. But he managed it, and hopefully Scott didn't realize that his silence was dragging a little.

Scott didn't know about him and Derek, not yet. Hell, he and Derek had only recently discovered the 'them' of it all. Well, Scott knew, but Scott-Scott didn't know...Even a few weeks of trying to wrap is brain around it hadn't helped Stiles come to terms with _that_.

"It's not like it's a big deal; I was just curious, and i thought my best buddy might want to hang out," Stiles said, trying to twinge Scott's heartstrings and build up a little guilt. He was feeling a little abandoned here lately, what with Scott spending so much of his time with Allison and with the pack.

"Fine, just...if we get attacked by ghosts and I die, I'm gonna go haunt Allison and get her to shoot you in the leg."

"Just the leg?" Stiles stumbled up the sooty stone steps to the half burned, half-hinged door to the Inn and stopped, "why not the face? I would think you'd go for the face."

Scott looked at the door, then back at him with an apprehensive grin. ""I would go for the face, but you are my best friend, so I thought that gave you a little leeway."

"That's so sweet."

"Oh, and if she was off her mark and hit a little higher," Scott clapped him on the shoulder, "then that would just be a happy accident." And he walked inside after a moment's hesitation, leaving Stiles gaping at him.

"Dude, not cool!" Stiles scrambled after him.

Stiles jumped when he heard the stairs straight ahead creak, as if under the weight of a body he and Scott couldn't see.

If he had been a rational, reasonable person, it would have been at that point that he would have turned tail and made his escape out the front door.

But he didn't.

"Just the building shifting, it's not used to people walking around here," he said quickly, shifting back and forth on the wooden floorboards, but the sound didn't repeat.

"Let's go this way," he said, looking down through a darkened hallway to an open-air room with the rear wall crumbling.

They had to walk past the stairs to get to it,and Stiles noticed Scott flaring his nostrils as he looked up the staircase to the landing that curved out away from it, with floor missing and roof jutting down to the other side, so there was something like a little crawl space above.

"Anybody up there?" Stiles asked quietly, because it was like he could feel eyes on him, but he couldn't tell where they were.

Scott shook his head.

"No, not even an animal." He gave Stiles a strange look, and then shoved his against the nearest wall and rushed in front of him.

"Dude, what the..."

Scott glanced at him quickly, before turning back the other way, his eyes glowing yellow gold and his teeth all fangy.

"I thought..." Scott squeezed his eyes closed and when he opened them again, he was himself again. "I thought I saw somebody in there." He hesitated as Stiles looked around him. "The shadows moved," he said.

Stiles looked closely, but his eyes weren't as sharp. He looked until his eyes started to blur, but all he saw was black on darker black until..

"Oh my God! What the-" He saw a darker blob of darkness separate from the wall and move through a shaft of moonlight, but it was gone in the blink of an eye.

And Scott was running towards it, growling, in another blink.

"Oh, crap!" Stiles scrambled in his pocket for the little flashlight and took off after his friend. "No, Scott, bad! Bad idea!"

When he reached Scott he was whirling around, literally jumping at shadows, his nostrils flared and he ducked into every nook and cranny he could find, sniffling and looking around as Stiles twisted round and round as if he were the eye of the storm and Scott was the whirlwind.

He couldn't see or sense anything, and from the frustrated way that Scott growled and spun around, throwing his fist at a crumbling wall, he couldn't find anything either.

Breathing heavily, Scott went still,, head down and shuddering.

"There's nothing here," he said, "I can feel it, I know its something, but..." He hesitated and looked up at Stiles, "there's nothing here."

Maybe we should get out of..."

A crash from the dais up above the staircase reverberated through the building, making the wall Scott was leaning against vibrate. Stiles could feel it through the floor, the wood shuddering on as a few heavy footsteps creaked overhead where there was only open sky and a scrap of wood.

"No way," Stiles breathed, looking up at nothing, and the heavy steps stopped suddenly, and he could have sworn he heard a sharp inhalation of breath. It had heard him.

"Stiles," Scott said,"you should probably get out of here, I'm going to look around," Scott said, heading towards the stairs leading to their little platform, keeping one hand to the wall, and then to the bannister.

"No way." Stiles didn't know where the courage came from. He just felt drawn to the upstairs, following Scott as he walked up the first few steps of the unsteady staircase.

Hearing that wisp of breath had woken up an even stronger curiosity and need to know what the hell was going on than he already had before he needed to know what it was. Who it was.

It was like he'd kind of let himself hope. He was curious about ghosts and whether or not they were real, so he wanted to go to one of the places nearby that was most likely to be haunted. And he had heard all those sounds, with Scott,so he knew he wasn't just imagining them.

And that breath had been like hearing a ghost or a spirit in a moment of surprise, a moment of weakness, and he wanted to learn more.

So he started up the stairs behind Scott and kept a hand on the bannister as the stairs threatened to crumble and crack under their feet.

He heard a growl from up above, near Scott, and Scott returned it, hackles rising, as he stepped lightly and swiftly up the last few steps, looking around the landing and snooping around under the fallen roof, trying to find the source.

Stiles craned his neck when Scott disappeared from sight, but froze after a moment. He could hear breathing again, and felt the puff of hot air on the back of his neck.

"Jesus Christ what the—" Stiles spun around, falling against the rickety bannister and doubling over, his torso leaning over it. He felt a sudden, sharp burning on his lower back and a tug, and jerked back upright reflexively, arching his back and pressing his hand to the burn.

At his awkward squawk, Scott was suddenly there, pulling him back down the stairs and grabbing his arms.

"What happened, Stiles! Talk to me!"

Stiles temporarily forgot every word in the English language and the little bit of Spanish and French he'd picked up through osmosis as well.

He garbled nonsensically as the burn of his back grew stronger until he just couldn't think straight and he jabbed a thumb at his back and handed over the flashlight and twisted around and lifted his shirt.

"What is it?" he choked out, the pain turning to nausea and sharp aches.

"Dude," Scott said quietly, hiking up his shirt and lifting the light higher, "dude..."

"Scott,come on, tell me what's going on, okay."

"It.." Scott hesitated, "It looks like claw marks, three of them, and they're getting bigger by the second."

"Claw marks? How the hell..."

"They're stating to bleed," Scott said, flashlight's stream of light shaking a little, "we have to leave!"

He grabbed Stiles by the arm and started hauling him towards the front door, but Stiles heard a whoosh of air, a deep bass growl, and Scott stumbled, falling over against a crumbling wall, sending the whole thing and a segment of roof toppling on top of him.

Stiles wasn't really thinking. he dove into the mess, grabbing a hunk of wood and trying to pull it off of Scott, but he wasn't strong enough. He tugged, but hear Scott groan and backed up so Scott could get it off.

"Ow," he said.

"Thankfully you're a werewolf," he said as Scott got to his feet, but he spun around when he heard and felt somebody standing behind him again.

He felt a fingertip trace down the line of his neck and couldn’t take it anymore.

"Okay, that's it, let's get the hell out of here."

He took off out for his jeep. He was behind the wheel before he noticed Scott wasn't right behind him. He was running wolf fast, across the gravel, his eyes wide and spooked, and ran right past the jeep.

"Okay, so, I'll just...drive home by myself,” he said, staring up the jeep with shaking hands and refusing to look up at the big hulking inn that suddenly looked more sinister. He backed out and got on the road.

He caught sight of it in his rear view mirror, and felt like it was staring at him, eyes following him even after he drove, a lot faster than was strictly necessary, around a curve and out of sight.

  
  


Stiles made his way swiftly home because he was still burning in his lower back and he wanted to see what it looked like. He was scared of what he would find. His t shirt was plastered to his back and he didn't know if it was sweat or blood though his imagination had his shirt stained red and his jeep's seat getting soaked with blood seeping into it.

He had just managed to sneak into his room and pull of his skirt, craning around to look at his back in the mirror, when Scott called.

"I'm sorry, Stiles, I got kind of freaked out," he said without bothering with a hello.

Stiles twisted around to get a better angle, and his mouth went dry.

"It's alright," he said, trying to make his voice sound normal and not freaked out.

Along his lower back in a diagonal, from right above one hip to right below his pants line, three deep grooves were cut into his skin.

"It's just, I heard this creepy voice say 'get out!' and I had to get the hell out of there," he said, voice riddled with guilt. “Like I didn’t have a choice.”

"It's alright, Scott, I understand, and I was already in the jeep it's not like you abandoned me inside or anything," he said.

Scott was silent for a long moment. And Stiles was too busy looking at the three scrapes, the burning finally easing, to notice.

"That's just it," Scott said in an uncomfortable tone, "I I think that's what that thing wanted me to do."

"What?" Stiles asked, turning his back on himself and turning his attention to the phone.

"I think it wanted me to leave you there."

Stiles took a deep breath and let it out, shuddering through the chills that flowed over him at Scott's words.

"Yeah, that's not creepy at all. Next time we should definitely take a priest in there with us."

"Next time? Are you seriously considering going back?" Scott asked, worried.

"I guess not," Stiles said, "look, I’m kinda drained, we'll talk later, right?"

"Yeah, sure," Scott said, "I was just making sure you were okay."

Stiles brushed off his irritation at that guiltily. "Thanks, man, I’m fine," he said before hanging up the phone.

He dropped it on his desk and flopped onto his bed, ignoring the pile of homework he'd decided to put off. Maybe he'd do it later. Maybe not.

He was asleep within moments.

  
  


Stiles didn't get to talk to Scott at all the next morning. School just snuck up on him and he rushed in, late for homeroom, and then scrambled to do his homework for English while in algebra.

But he had something bubbling and dancing around in his mind to share with Scott all morning, and when his English teacher had to leave the room, then he took the opportunity to lean backwards across his desk and talk to Scott about the subject on his mind, his freaky dreams from the night before.

“And then Derek's eyes went yellow and he turned into a dragon and fought this other black and red, embery dragon, and I had this glowing spear and stabbed the burny one in the heart, you know like you do...” Stiles mimed throwing a spear at the far wall, getting a weird look from Danny, and almost falling out of his desk when he noticed and tried to turn it into a stretch.

“Stiles...”

"The dragon thing was weird, and it had some strange spikey things coming out of its back, and it gave me this look that..."

"Stiles!"

Stiles straightened up and looked at Scott, and noticed the whole class was staring at him, along with his teacher.

He hunched over his desk a little self consciously.

“So, uh, anybody know what that means?” he asked uncomfortably.

“It means you should be using that imagination a lot more for your creative writing assignments,” his teacher said quietly, as she leaned over his desk and handed him a detention slip.

When she turned her back and went back to the front of the class, Scott mouthed _Tell Derek._ but Stiles shook his head.

He mouthed _It was just a creepy dream. I don't want to bother him._ but Scott just looked confused.

Stiles knew he could deal with one weird dream on his own. It was just an after effect of all the creepiness of the night before. Right?

He leaned further over his desk, until his nose was almost pressed to his notebook, and absently started drawing the dragon, lines and scribbles not doing justice to the black scales paling and glowing white hot and orange at major points, smoke curling from its nose and off of it like fog off of a lake.

Stiles let the teacher's words drone on, sliding over him as he tried to at least pretend to listen as he added shadows and light to the dragon's eyes, when he felt a poke in his side and jumped.

He looked up and saw Danny discreetly offered him a slip of paper.

He slid it into his lap and unfolded it discreetly.

"Dream interpretation is one of my things. Dragon could mean passion, rage or unresolved emotional issues or envy, depending on the details. Talk to me more at lunch if you want to know more."

Stiles tilted his head. He did have quite a few issues. And it made more sense than a ghost scratching him and making him have nightmares about dragons because how would that even happen.

He looked up and Danny and smiled, gave a sharp nod and a wink.

Danny raised a brow at him, and then went back to taking his notes.

Stiles relaxed a little with the possibility of some semi answers in his future and eased his mind as he survived English class and the time it took to get to lunch.

  
  


With his new found alliance with Danny, Stiles started keeping a dream journal and recounting his dream exploits, well the suitable for all audiences ones, at least (the others went into a special journal hidden under his mattress).

Turns out, Danny was fascinated with the subconscious and how it kept working while the mind was dormant, like a computer with processes running while on standby and how it all worked. is how he described it. And dreams were a specialty of his.

As well as trying to interpret the madness of Stiles' recurring fiery dragon dreams, he was teaching him about lucid dreaming, so he could gain some control and stop getting the scary nightmares every night.

Sometimes he would dream of fighting the dragon, or being chased by it, but as he grew better at the lucid dreaming, and it only took a couple of nights,which Danny said was unusual, his dreams got more exciting, less terrifying. He would catch himself while asleep, go oh hey there’s my dragon i guess I'm dreaming, and look at the thing, and on a few nights, he actually pooled his courage and stepped up to the hulking beast. He asked him what the hell he was doing there.

The dragon would look at him with weird, fiery red eyes that managed to be superior and expressive, and filled with attitude. but it would never answer him. But Stiles had the distinct feeling that it could talk if it wanted to.

But once he had dropped a shoulder and extended a wing, in an obvious offer for a ride. Stiles had, on that occasion, looked around, tried to make a door form into the side of the hill nearby, but he didn't have the focus.

And he knew, deep down, that he wanted to ride the dragon.

So he sighed, stepped one foot on the ridged, strong joint of the wing, feeling the smooth, stony sleekness of the scales under his feet.

"Dragon, what happened to my shoes?"

The dragon shrugged, sending Stiles falling forward so he was halfway across its back, behind the wing, and Stiles scrambled to get across the back, thankful that the spikes started a little farther down its back.

He saw white hot fire underneath the clear scales in front of him, sliding up its long neck, smoke curling, but it was cool to the touch.

"This is so, so weird," he breathed, trying to find something to hold on to, and just falling forward and gripping as far around the dragon's neck as he could when it took off in buffeting wind and bumpiness.

He felt weightless, like the negative G’s of riding a roller coaster, as the dragon swooped down then curved back up and started flying in long lazy curves on the currents of the air.

Then he went into a sharp, steep dive and Stiles woke up with a feeling like he was falling into bed.

His heart had pounded when he woke and took a few minutes to catch his breath. He felt a little shaky just going back over it with Danny at lunch, the next day, as they tried to work out what it meant.

Danny rubbed his chin, after going through his notes. "So, how did it make you feel?" He asked, "Freaked out, happy, what?" Danny's eyes strayed over to Jackson, a few seats away, his brow furrowed with worry.

“So, what's up with him?” Stiles asked, following his eye.

Jackson looked away and Danny grimaced. “He's still getting used to it all; he's not telling me whats going on, but I can tell he's having some trouble.” He sighed, turned back to Stiles. “So, the dream?” 

Stiles thought back. "A little freaked out, but once i got over the weirdness, and until the falling part, then I was having fun. It was flying, you know, kind of freeing."

Danny thought for a long moment."You know, getting on the dragon, and having fun flying, that might mean that you're getting over something, or learning to cope with something you were having trouble with," He said, "but the falling kind of contradicts that, because it normally happens when a person is feeling out of control or overwhelmed."

"Huh..." Stiles was reliving it again, remembering the feel of smooth living stone under his hands, and the freedom of flying.

He still hadn’t told Derek about going to the Inn, or about the dreams.

His back was almost healed already, just three thin lines left over of the claw marks.

  
  


Stiles was nibbling on his lunch and rambling a little about his dreams to Erica and Boyd, who happened to know about him and Derek after a brief very embarrassing encounter at Derek's apartment the night before. He was trying to put it from his mind; it was just a little over the clothes fondling, but he kept seeing Boyd's wide, shocked eyes, and the way that Erica just covered her mouth with her hand and giggled until they got appropriate distances apart.

They had, at Stiles urgings and blackmail, agreed to keep it from Scott on the case that he tell him within the next weeks. Which Stiles didn't look forward to, even though he knew Scott was dealing with Derek a lot more relaxed than he was before. Even though he was still raw about Derek turning him. Understandably, of course, but it made things very awkward for Stiles.

So, he was rambling at lunch in a way to break the ice and keep them from mentioning the night before within earshot of Scott or Isaac or any other prying ears.

"You see, it's just this weird thing, Danny says it's symbolic and I guess he might be right, but it started happening after Scott and I visited the Inn but oh crap i shouldn't have told you that because Derek doesn't know." Stiles rubbed a hand over his face, but looked back up in time to see Erica and Boyd sharing an understanding, mind meld-y, shifty look.

Then they looked back at him, judgmentally. And Stiles tensed up.

"No! I-I-I forbid you from telling Derek! It's just a few dreams. I think they're funny. Haha a dragon can't decide if it wants to use me as a chew toy or let me ride on its back. Haha. See?” He felt his face going red as Boyd just stared at him blankly, and then shook his head.

Stiles turned to Erica hopefully, and she looked at him sympathetically, with a hint of a smile taunting one corner of her lips. He smiled hopefully.

”If it's no big deal, then why haven't you told Derek?” she asked.

Stiles felt his face fall and the thin veil of lie dropped away in a way the Stiles really wasn't familiar with. He took a deep breath and sighed.

But Danny showed up out of nowhere and sat next to him, which was a little weird. Normally Stiles had to seek him out.

“Ease off, guys,” he said, nudging Stiles reassuringly.

”Thank you.”

“When he's ready to admit he has a problem, he'll tell whoever the truth.” He grinned when Boyd laughed.

”Hey!” Stiles turned to glare at Boyd and Erica as they laughed at him. Which was really hurtful and insensitive, even for wolf beast people.

Then turned back to Danny.

Danny's eyes were squinted in laughter, but they looked more callus than Stiles had ever seen him look before. As he stared, his eyes started glowing fiery red. And his smile grew predatory, teeth elongating and sharpening to a point.

Stiles absently thought 'huh i guess Danny's a werewolf,' up until the scales slid up from under his skin in a stark, smooth pattern and he saw shadows drop over him, as wings sprouted from his shoulders and extended, red and black, blocking out the florescent cafeteria lights.

Stiles stumbled up to his feet, alone with Danny in the suddenly silent and empty cafeteria. All of the others were suddenly gone.

It was silent, dead, but for the two of them.

But Danny-now-a-Dragon ruffled his wings and managed to plaster them to his back, claws sharp and long and hooked sprouting from his fingers. He stepped smoothly, agilely closer, pulling out his wings again and curving them inwards, flapping them and sending an icy breeze over Stiles before stepping in too close, where Stiles was frozen, and taking a long swipe at him with the back of a hand, not using those sharp, dangerous claws.

“Listen to me!” He roared, his voice not at all familiar, rough and angry and and feral.

”Dude, I was listening! I've been listening to you for days!” Stiles called, but the breath was knocked out of him by the hit, and he made no noise.

But all traces of Danny were gone; it was something else, there. Not Danny at all.

"I'm not a goddamn symbol," the dragon snarled, lashing out again, this time with claws, and hitting Stiles right in the gut. Then everything went dark.

Stiles woke up with a searing pain in his belly, making his last claw marks feel like a kitten scratch in comparison.

He switched on his lights with his hand shaking and lifted his shirt slowly, not wanting to. Not wanting to see what was beneath it, even though he could already see blood seeping into his shirt over the stomach.

“No no no, aw man.” He said brokenly, just staring at the bloody mess of his stomach.

There were three angry, deep slashes in a line across his belly, right above his belly button.

Heart pounding, stomach aching, he squeezed his eyes closed and tried to wake up.

"Just a dream, it was just a dream," he muttered to himself over and over.

He heard a growl rumble behind him and his eyes popped open as he twisted around in bed to see nothing. His mouth gaped open and he mouthed like a fish.

Then he shook his head.

"No. I just imagined that." His stomach pulled painfully and he glanced down to see the three lines of blood on his shirt. "And scratched myself in my sleep,” he said wistfully.

He whimpered a little in his throat and rolled onto his side. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths.

He started to relax and felt a little of the tension easing from his back and shoulders. He was still in denial about the scratches and repressed the pain in his belly to a dull ache.

He felt a tingling in his scalp, a pleasant wave of static like energy that made him shiver. He sighed.

A puff of hot air was huffed out onto the back of his neck, and Stiles relaxed, on the brink of consciousness, thinking abstractly of Derek before tensing up. It would have been nice, the feeling if not for the pain in his gut and the invisible, intangible hand that he suddenly felt start sliding over his hip and-“Bad touch!” he squawked.

Stiles clumsily scrambled up out of his bed, stumbled over, jumped up and lunged for his phone. It was not a rational reasonable thing. He just instinctively grabbed his phone.

He had no idea who he was gonna call. Except maybe...Stile grimaced, no can't call fictional people, though. Otherwise his life would have been a lot easier. He would have just called the wolf man to get advice for Scott, and maybe Van Helsing, and then a few more people for the thrill of it but that was beside the point and he no longer felt safe in his own bedroom.

He flipped on the lights and looked through his room from top to bottom, letting anger and betrayal at being injured and then tentatively touched very near his pubic mound imbue him.

He let that anger fuel him long enough to do a thorough search, finding nothing except a library book he'd paid fifty bucks for because he lost it two years earlier and a few things he hadn't cared to find.

But when his search came up empty, he couldn't hold on to the anger any longer. He shivered again, whether it was because of what had already happened or because he still felt uncomfortable and watched, he tried not to think about it.

His room was eerily silent. It felt like his safe haven was destroyed. Like there was something hiding in the shadows, watching him. He couldn't stay there. He felt sick to his stomach and his chest felt fluttery.

After a few more deep breaths, Stiles snarled at his room in general. He hesitated for a moment after that, realizing that he had spent far too much time amongst the wolves. He grabbed his pillow and a blanket off of his bed, gave his room one last nasty look, and took off downstairs for the couch.

The anger was starting to come back, the fact that he felt too scared to stay in his own bedroom, in his own bed, was starting to make him build back up into a nice frothy rage.

But he tried to distract himself, as he settled his pillow onto the couch, pummeling it into a lumpy mess before straightening it and tossing the blanket over the couch.

He picked up his phone and checked the time. He sighed.

“Three AM, great." He settled onto the couch and threw his legs over the arm since they were too long to fit along the side. He flopped back against his pillow.

"At least its not a weeknight.”

He thumbed through his phone and started idly researching spirits and ghost detection and especially how to perform exorcisms. He was really interested in that last one and spent a good half hour trying to memorize an exorcism in Latin.

He huddled there on the couch, fuming, and made sure to check the time on his phone every few minutes.

He was finally willing to call Derek, and see what he might know about the ghost thing. Not that he would have any expertise, necessarily. Just because he was one type of supernatural creature didn't mean he knew about all of them. But he might.

But if he called Derek too early in the morning, he would more than likely run over and go all protective Alpha wolf on him.

And explaining that to his dad wouldn't be very fun.

Stiles still felt a little weird, but eventually dropped his phone and slowly fell asleep.

  
  


Stiles woke up to the smell of coffee and an impending sense of doom. His neck was aching from his uncomfortable position using the armrest as a makeshift pillow after his real pillow fell to the floor while he was sleeping and his feet were icy cold and out from under the blankets.

But the delicious, bitter heavy smell of coffee in the air made that all fade to the background as he blearily opened his eyes and reached out for the cup. The smell was wafting from a few inches away from his face, where his dad was holding a cup.

“Coffee, coffee, coffee,” he chanted absently and reached for it. It was barely coffee, more like sugary milk with an ounce or two of coffee spiking it, the way his dad fixed it for him. After a few horrifying instances of giving him a normal serving size of coffee and having to deal with the consequences of that. Which normally consisted of listening to Stiles chatter a mile a minute while jerkily pacing whatever area he was inside, which was difficult when he was in the car, just bouncing his legs, followed by a day of school in which he got called in to take Stiles home after he out-lessened his history teacher by discussing obscure mythology and lore.

Since then, Stiles' coffee level was severely restricted, though his dad didn’t have the heart to cut him off completely.

But his dad quickly pulled back the delicious creamy brown cup of deliciousness and Stiles whimpered and looked up at his dad imploringly.

“Care to tell me why you're on the couch?” he asked, eying him with a mix of apprehension and amusement.

Still bleary, Stiles pouted at the coffee cup a moment longer, then said the first thing that came to mind.

“My room smells funny.” Which wasn't a total lie. It was believable and stayed far far from the truth that he thought his room was now haunted because he had done something stupid because his curiosity level was higher than that of the average domesticated cat.

The Sheriff frowned at him and Stiles looked away, wistfully watching the steam rise and curl off of his coffee, fighting back a wince when it made him think of his creepy fire dragon dreams, even with their weird pleasantness.

The Sheriff inhaled sharply through his nose, like he was about to start a lecture, but he let it out in a rush.

”If you'd clean it up every once in a while...” he said slowly, instead of whatever he had planned, and Stiles felt a twinge of guilt.

A twinge that grew stronger when his dad handed him the coffee in defeat, still staring at him with worry.

"It's right at the tippy top of my to do list, Dad, right after going to school and doing homework and making sure you don't eat greasy unhealthy food more than once a week, when I can stop you," he said in a rush.

His dad looked down and smiled before looking back up at him.

"Just don't burn down the house or anything."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he called after his dad as he started out.

He sipped on his coffee milk innocently until the front door slammed closed and he heard the car start up.

He waited a few moments longer, until the car pulled out onto the road and sped away down the street to grab his phone off of the coffee table and poke Derek's number.

When Derek answered, he sounded irritated, like Stiles had woke him up. But then again that was his normal state, so maybe not.

"What is it, Stiles?"

Stiles changed his mind. He didn't want to tell Derek anymore. So he just gaped like a fish for a minute.

"Um. Hi." he finally managed, and heard some muffled sounds of Derek moving around.

"What's wrong?" he asked sharply.

Oh, crap. Too late. He clenched his phone a little tighter in his hand.

“Derek, I want you to listen to me and not freak out, okay. Just remember that. Don't. Freak. Out.”

A second of silence, and Stiles held his breath. 

“I'm on my way.”

”Damn it!” Stiles said, but the line was already dead. And Derek had gone from mildly irritated to life in peril tone in those few words.

Not. Good.

  
  


Derek barged into the house without knocking, hell, probably without checking to see if the sheriff was there or not. His nostrils flared as he crossed the threshold and his eyes bore into Stiles.

Stiles crossed his arms over his stomach defensibly, even though he'd changed out of his bloody shirt.

"Why do I smell blood?" He asked, stepping well into Stiles' personal space and looking him over deftly.

Stiles backed up a few steps. "Oh, that? It's nothing. Dad cut himself chopping up peppers for an omelet this morning," he invented wildly. "You know most accidents with kitchen utensils...happen in the kitchen," he finished lamely.

Derek's brows shot down, and his eyes narrowed.

"It's your blood," he said simply, in a way that accused Stiles of doing something wrong by bleeding.

"You can tell my blood..." Stiles trailed off, then gained a second wind. "First of all, gross, second of all, I just cut myself shaving, and it's totally unrelated to the reason I..."

"There's too much," Derek said, stalking Stiles until he had him pinned to a wall, and then he noticed the way Stiles was holding his stomach.

His eyes flicked up, worry covering the suspicion, and Stiles sighed. When Derek gently ran his hands over his arms, he let them slide away from his stomach. He looked briefly at Stiles' face again before slowly lifting his shirt.

His eyes glowed red and Stiles got the honor of watching the creepy wolf-ifying process up close and personal for the first time. It was kind of cool in a mind meltingly gross and squishy gory way. But he quickly got distracted by the clawed fingers digging into his biceps.

"Who did it?" Derek growled.

"Well, you see, it's not really..." Stiles fumbled over his words.

"I told you that all of the betas, except for Scott, still have a hairpin trigger this close to the full moon!" He snarled in Stiles' face, and it would have been intimidating if Derek hadn't immediately dropped down to a knee to take a closer look at the claw marks. "I'll kill them, every one, just to make sure I get the right one," he snapped, voice going up, but claws slipped away and his face smoothed back to normal as he tentatively reached out and touched the area below the lowest cut, making it pull.

Stiles' breath hitched a little, and he looked up.

"What happened?" He asked again, anger expressed, sounding tired and resigned, his voice lowering to its normal pitch.

Stiles tugged at Derek's shoulder until he stood back up. Him being down there was giving him ideas, and he needed to focus on what he had to tell Derek. Plus, after telling Derek what he needed to, he didn't want him to be anywhere near those delicate areas, if maiming happened to occur.

"You know the old inn near the nature reserve?" Stiles started hesitantly. You know the one where you and your family lived until they all burned to death...

Derek eyed him, warmth and anger seeping back into his face. "I'm familiar. Stiles, what did you do?"

Stiles let his shoulders sag, and tugged off his shirt. He turned around to show the faint scars from the scrapes he got while he was there.

"I went to explore, and this happened," he said, waiting for Derek to flip. He inhaled sharply, but didn't say anything, waiting. Stiles' throat closed up, and he couldn't seem to say anything else.

He felt a finger trail lightly over his back.

"Tell me," Derek said quietly.

And for once, Stiles told the truth.

He told Derek about him talking Scott into going to the inn, about them exploring, about the growls and the shadows and the creepy thing that clawed him. He told him about some of the dragon dreams, uncomfortably leaving out the one about flying, but telling him about Danny, and how he turned into the evil dragon, and how it slashed him, and how he woke up bleeding. He also left out the feeling of breath on the back of his neck, and the way a hand he couldn't see had touched him close to his naughty place.

After Stiles finished talking, he finally made himself look up at Derek.

Derek just stared at him.

“What?” Stiles fidgeted uncomfortably.

Derek stared more.

“What else?” he finally asked.

“Nothing! I had a dream that you turned into a giant ice cream, and I ate you, but I thought that was a little too Freudian and off topic so-”

“Stiles...” Derek didn't even sound irritated anymore.

“After the scratches happened, I also kinda..." Stiles hesitated, then let it all out in a rush, "felt a breath on my neck and a touch very close to my happy place, but other than that...”

Derek's eyes went red. “It happened in your bedroom?”

  
  


A few seconds later, Stiles was panting, clutching his side, and Derek was prowling around his room, sending books and dirty clothes flying as he tried to find something. Anything. That would point them towards the scratchy dragon.

Stiles' breathing had settled back to normal when he felt something...off. Oh crap. A tingling started in his spine, and he tried to ignore it, but Derek stiffened and whipped around like he'd been hit.

His claws came out in record time and he lunged towards Stiles. Stiles hunched over and covered his head with an inelegant cry, but Derek rushed past him, slicing at the air, and stumbling against the wall when there was nothing there to hit.

And then the feeling was gone, as quick as it had come, and they looked at each other, Derek more alarmed that Stiles had ever seen him.

“What the hell?” he asked, eyes wide and looking weird that way as he was still wolfed out. Then he snarled again and started out the window.

Stiles grabbed him around the middle before he could jump.

"Let go," he said quietly, too calmly.

"No way, where are you going?"

"To the inn. I'm going to find that thing and kill it."

He tried to break free of Stiles, and Stiles knew he could have easily if he really wanted to, but he held back from hurting him.

"Dude, just think about it," Stiles panted, bracing his legs against the window frame so he was held up diagonally by his hands around Derek’s middle.

"I'm waiting," he growled.

"What...what if it’s already dead?" he asked, and waited, still as possible in his current predicament.

Derek relaxed and stepped away.

Stiles fell unceremoniously to the floor.

Derek tilted his head, upside down to Stiles.

"Maybe you're right," he said.

  
  


Derek wasn't happy. Like, he really wasn't happy to be there. But he didn't know what was going on, and they didn't have a choice.

So he stood stoically right inside the clinic, letting Stiles take the lead, only speaking up once, and that was more of a grunt, when Stiles' anxious tapping on the counter top grew too violent. Stiles stopped himself with a muttered apology and quickly explained what had happened to him at the inn.

Deaton stepped to the side and slid open the divide, separating them from the back, and waved a hand. Stiles could feel Derek relax at his back. It was more of a tense boiling energy fading from the atmosphere. And his twitching went down a little.

"We should speak privately," Deaton said, and stepped aside to let them walk through, to the back with the medical equipment and the animals were. He pulled the little door firmly shut behind them and followed.

He was silent for a long moment as he stared at them, his fingers steepled.

"This is puzzling," he said, "from what you say, it could be a ghost or demonic of some kind, but the kind of damage you described? That is highly unusual. It would have to be extremely strong. Only mediums, psychics are susceptible of being injured in such a way, and Stiles, you are not psychic."

“Then what am I?”

Deaton thought for another moment, and then pulled open a drawer below the row of cabinets that Stiles hadn't noticed before. He hauled out a big chest, opened it, and Stiles craned his neck to see various vials and tufts of herbs and old coins and other stuff he didn't get to see before Deaton snapped it closed. He held up a clear glass bottle between two fingers, and the liquid inside shimmered in the fluorescent light.

“This might hurt," he said, twisting the lid, and stepping closer to Stiles.

Stiles tensed up, and felt Derek's agitated presence at his back, but all he felt were a few cool drops trickle down his head and the back of his neck. He waited, but nothing else happened. Deaton hummed in thought.

"Where did it injure you?"

Stiles elegantly pointed at his stomach, but Deaton just raised his brows until he sighed and lifted his shirt, showing the long thin slashes. He probably should have bandaged them up, but he got a little distracted.

Deaton leaned down, studying them with a furrowed brow. "Strange," he murmured, holding his finger over the top of the bottle and letting a few drops fall over the scrapes around the middle of Stiles' stomach.

Stiles twisted up his face in preparation, but again, nothing happened. Just the cold trickle.

Deaton sighed and screwed the silver lid back on the bottle, just a little bit of fluid now missing.

"Was that water?” Stiles asked, letting his shirt fall back over his stomach.

Deaton nodded.

”Holy water. Whatever your creature is, it's not a demon. Or the sulfur and demonic residue would have made the injury burn as it purified.”

”Then what is it?” Derek asked roughly. Stiles had a feeling that he was silently stressing out more than he was.

Deaton was silent for a long time, staring down at his case. He trailed a finger over the latch.

“I don't know." he admitted, "I'll do some...” He flipped the case open again and leaned over it, frowning, “research.”

Stile craned his neck around again, but couldn't get a good look at the stuff with Deaton in the way, just saw a few odd symbols.

”I want to help, can I help?” He asked, not really thinking it through.

But Derek was at his arm, tugging at him.

”We have to go,” he said, giving Stiles a meaningful look.

Stiles pouted at it, but Derek scowled, and he rolled his eyes.

"Fine," he muttered, and they started out.

“In the meantime," Deaton called after them, his voice sharp, piercing, "don't go into the Inn. Stay away until we know what we're dealing with.”

Derek nodded respectfully, and kept backing away.

"I wouldn't dream of going in there,” he said, and Stiles looked at him sharply, as the grip on his arm got a little tighter.

  
  


Stiles checked his watch, squinting as it glinted in the sunshine pooling over them in the bright sooty, burned up center of the inn.

It was eight minutes later.

Eight minutes after Deaton advised them to stay away from the inn. And they were standing amidst the ruins, Derek with tense, tight shoulders and his arms crossed. And Stiles not feeling much better.

And it was not just them. Scott, Erica, Isaac, and Boyd were stumbling around, trying to make their way through the front door and avoiding the old lumber and debris on the floor. Stiles wondered for a minute how he and Scott managed not to fall over and impale themselves on the rusty nails poking up everywhere.

Pure luck, he supposed.

Stiles nudged Derek in the side as the betas approached, Isaac and Scott from the front and Boyd and Erica from the back. "Are you sure it was necessary to invite the pups along?" He muttered, getting a rough look from Boyd, before he smile and waved a hand and Boyd rolled his eyes.

Derek wasn't looking at him, his nostrils were flaring, and his eyes were darting around in every direction at once.

"For this," he said, not stopping his search, even as Scott stepped close and the others started poking around and 'looking for clues,' "the more eyes, the better."

Stiles grimaced, and Scott nudged him.

"You okay?" he asked, as Derek stepped away to investigate a freaking butterfly or something Stiles didn't see.

Stiles scowled, but caught himself. "Yeah, I'm fine, just..." he hesitated, "it's not fun to have a pack of werewolves knowing you're too weak to protect yourself from something, and having them to come to the rescue."

"Come on, it's not like that," Scott said earnestly, "this thing could easily have targeted one of us, me, and it would be the same thing. I wouldn't be able to do anything either. And we're pack. We're here to look out for each other."

Stiles felt a smile creep hesitantly across his face. "Yeah, fine," he said irritably, secretly mollified, "but that doesn't mean this is fun."

Scott clapped him on the shoulder and started to move away, but Stiles heard familiar, no nonsense, high heeled steps approaching, and he clutched at Scott.

"No," he said, "no, no no."

"What?" Scott asked, confused.

But Stiles was looking past him, as Lydia slipped through the gap in the broken door and picked her way across the entryway, eyes stopping on the raised dais at the top of the stairs, before sliding over to him.

Stiles looked away quickly and turned back to Scott.

"What is Lydia doing here?” he hissed violently, making Scott jerk back as he spit. He wiped his mouth. "Sorry," he muttered.

"Allison called her,” Scott said, as if it were the most reasonable thing on the planet. And Stiles had to work to resist the urge to headbutt him, because it would probably just crack his own skull open anyway...he glowered at Derek's broad back. That was all his fault.

Stiles gave up glaring eye daggers at Derek's back, and eyes slid back to Lydia. She spun around at a sound, and a grin spread over her face, making her look even more beautiful.

Stiles followed her look and groaned inwardly.

Allison shoved her way past the door, a lot less gently that Lydia did, and turned around to look back out.

“Yaay, Allison's here,"Stiles murmured, "I guess that's every...”

Victoria Argent walked in after her daughter, giving the remains of the inn a cool, cursory look around before her eyes settled on Stiles. He felt uncomfortable under that piercing gaze, and for some reason reached up and started fiddling with his ear, before poking Derek in the back and making him turn around. “Um..."

Stiles motioned at the Argents with his eyes, and cocked his head at Derek.

Derek ducked his head respectfully to Victoria, who started over, after giving a dirty look to Scott and Allison, who were like magnets, always moving towards each other.

“This is a threat not only to you, but to the entire town. Your safety, Stiles, and possibly others, is at stake," she said, finally looking him in the eyes and imparting how seriously she was taking the threat, "I'm not taking any chances.”

But Stiles had had enough. It was just a few scratches it wasn't like he had almost died or anything. It was just like having a moody cat. An invisible moody cat. He would get used to it, or teach the cat-dragon not to scratch or something this was not necessary.

”Oh, great, I'm glad that my eminent demise is bringing the whole damn neighborhood together!” he snapped, glaring at Derek, but he heard Victoria stepping closer and he just huffed out an angry sigh.

"I don't know about that," she said slowly, giving Derek a penetrating look before turning back to Stiles, "Chris and I are worried that this...threat may spread to others, and since it's supernatural in origin, it makes it our business." She looked from one of them to the other. "As long as you stay out of our way, and don't cause trouble, I'm sure we can work together." She paused. "Especially since we all have a vested interest in solving this case."

Argent gave Stiles' shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and he felt her nails dig in for a moment, before moving away to talk quietly with Allison, who had quickly stepped out of Scott's personal space, making it even more obvious that they were still dating, despite her parents’ wishes. Stiles heard a rushed whisper as Victoria stepped away. And apparently Allison wasn't fooling anyone.

Stiles tried not to weep. He felt like an invalid with a death sentence looming over his head, and everyone was being nice to him because of it.

He watched as everyone suddenly spread out, as if on unspoken orders, and started exploring and picking amongst the rubble. He already felt sweat dripping down the back of his neck, and soot was dusted over his hands and clothes.

"So are you going to stand around all day, or help us figure out what the hell's attacking you?" Derek asked, irritated that Stiles was standing in one spot and staring into space.

Stiles actually smiled. He could always trust Derek not to pull any punches.

"You didn't have breakfast this morning, did you?" He asked absently, walking past Boyd and Erica, who were leaning close together near the stairs. He heard Boyd talking about the wolf, his wolf, and Erica giving him some pointers for keeping it in check.

"Stiles..." Derek said warningly.

"I can tell, I can always tell," Stiles continued, "when you're hungry, you get grumpy." He hesitated. "More grumpy than normal."

He smoothed his face into a serious expression as he got even with Derek, and they started searching, lulling Derek into a false sense of security as the fumbled around what looked like it was once a kitchen.

"I swear, you're like the living epitome of those damn Snickers commercials," he said, after a moment.

He was rewarded by a long suffering sigh.

  
  


Nothing happened at all, except for the dull murmur of voice, the occasional whine of the wooden inn settling or moving under unaccustomed weight and footsteps. They all spread out across the inn, it was bigger than Stiles had expected, the night before.

The entryway led off to the left and a long corridor of rooms with a storage area at the end, where he and Scott had jumped at shadows that night less than a week ago that felt so long ago. To the right there was another line of rooms, this side burned up beyond recognition, and it led down to the kitchen and laundry room and a few other things that Stiles couldn't identify.

He had separated from Derek at some point, absently wandering off on his own, pulled unconsciously back to the main room, casting distrustful looks up the stairs, where Boyd was standing unsteadily as Erica picked her way lithely across the cracked and broken floor, heading for the dark space under the fallen roof, where Stiles and Scott had felt the presence the other night.

Stiles had opened his mouth to say something, he wasn't sure what. Warn her, ask her to be careful, tell her to get the hell out of there. Something. But a few things happened at once.

Down the corridor to the left, a door slammed hard enough to shake the entire wall, almost sending Boyd off balance up on the stairs, followed by a strangled cry from Isaac, inside, and pounding on the door.

Another, sharper sound ricochet across the divide, from the kitchen, where Scott and Allison were poking around. And Allison arched her back, reflexively reaching around with a cry of her own as Stiles heard another ping, and a fumblingly sound as a golf ball sized rock skittered across the floor.

Allison's crossbow was in hand and pointed at it in the second it took Stiles to look back up at her, he hair flyaway and face red. Scott was at her side, and Stiles saw Lydia rushing out of the laundry room nearby and out to her. So he turned back to Isaac, where Derek was shoving his shoulder into the door, trying to get it open.

He started to go to Allison, just to check things out, when he glanced back up the stairs at Boyd and Erica. He looked away again, but turned and saw Victoria Argent staring up at them, paused on her way to Allison, frowning, head tilted to the side and eyes narrowed.

Stiles looked back up at them and actually felt the change.

They didn't look like themselves. Stiles couldn't quite put a finger on it, but it had something to do with the way they were standing, both out in the open now.

Boyd had his arms crossed tight across himself, hunching over, and he looked like he was shaking a little. Erica had her chin up, eyes narrowed, with a haughty, angry expression.

“No,” she said in a cold, clear voice that gave Stiles chills, “you can't stop me.”

“Please, just listen to reason,” Boyd said in a rush, not noticing as the wood crumbled under his feet as he stepped quickly over to her, taking her arms in his hands.

But she shrugged him off. “Why does it matter to you, anyway?” Erica snarled.

Stiles heard Victoria step up closer to him. “What the hell,” she murmured, still staring up at them.

Boyd took a step closer to Erica, reached out, but thought better of it, and let his hand drop back to his side.

She sucked in a deep breath and let it out, dropping her head. Her voice was rough, self loathing.

“I know it's selfish, and I'm an ass for even saying it, but I don't...” The sounds of Derek shoving at the door drown out some of the words, and Stiles grimaced. He had a feeling it was important, what he'd missed.

“...without a fight,” She said, reaching out and taking Boyd's hand in both of hers.

But then they both dropped their heads, hands sliding apart, as if the energy had gone out of them, but then Erica's energy changed. Her head came up, her eyes wide. And her voice was rougher than Stiles would have thought possible.

“You came back,” she rasped, breath panting out in gasps. She clutched at Boyd's shirt, as if she had to make sure he was really there.

”I had to," Boyd panted, matching her energy and pulling her to the more sturdy section of floor.

When they were safer, she looked up at him, still surprised, and confused. She spoke the question with her eyes.

“I had to,” he repeated, moving in closer, one hand tracing along her wrist, his head tilted down as Erica looked up. He raised his free hand to her chin and he leaned down.

Then there was a loud crash that made Stiles yelp, and he saw Boyd and Erica jump apart, looking groggy and confused.

Stiles saw Derek shoving the remains of the door aside as Isaac stumbled out of the room, looking shaky.

He shook himself mentally, noticing that everyone, from Allison and Lydia to Victoria and Scott, were staring up at Boyd and Erica with fascination. He hadn't even noticed them walk up. He had felt really weirdly emotionally invested in whatever just happened.

Stiles found himself catching Victoria Argent's eye they were the only two who saw all of what just happened.

"What the hell's going on?" Derek asked, helping Isaac over to the rest of them as he caught his breath. Boyd and Erica were shakily making their ways down the steps, with Erica grudgingly accepting Lydia's help and Boyd gripping the rickety bannister so tightly Stiles swore he saw the wood dent inwards.

Argent's eyes were as piercing as ever as she stared Stiles down, bringing him back to the group watching them.

"Do you know anything?" she asked Stiles quietly, "you're the one with the connection to this thing, this place."

Stiles swallowed, having trouble shaking off the emotions he felt coming through from Boyd and Erica. He had felt transfixed, as much a part of it as they were, but he didn't know anything.

He shook his head, eyes wide and worried.

Argent sighed. "It was worth a shot," she muttered, "I don't know what the hell's going on here either. And I don't know what may happen next. We need to leave.”  
  
  


Isaac was heading for the door before Argent stopped talking, with Boyd and Erica not far behind.

Stiles felt relief flood over him as they all files out. But as they left(how did he end up in the back?) he hesitated at the exit. He felt something pulling him back inside and turned back around. He stared up at the stairs, at where Boyd and Erica were standing.

But there was nothing there.

He turned back around, but felt a cool, solid hand on his wrist. He was afraid to look down at it. Afraid of what he would see. It tightened as he tried to pull away.

A now familiar, creepy presence slid up his back like icy fingertips, chilling him as they trickled up his back, he felt a breath against his ear, a sharp inhale and the beginning of a word. He froze, straining to hear.

“Stiles!” Derek was suddenly there, looking around the door for him, irritated and a little alarmed, “what are you doing?”

After a quick snarl, the presence was gone. It didn't like Derek. Why wasn't Stiles surprised?

 

The sun was shining down on them even more brightly outside of the inn, but to Stiles it felt a lot less oppressive. He had a feeling why, but he really didn't want to think about it or look too closely.

He was walking silently next to Derek, right behind Isaac, who was angry and tense and talking to Scott.

"I don't see why we don't just rip that damn place down board by board. Just destroy it stupid damn thing locked me in a fucking closet." Scott was humming in agreement, but Stiles could tell he wasn't angry or taking it seriously.

But Allison, on Scott's other side, had her face puckered and pinched, nodding in agreement.

"Why did it feel like it had to lock you in there, that's what I want to know," she said, frowning, glancing over her shoulder. 

Isaac shrugged, a sharp, angry move, and huffed out a breath. "Hell if I know. It just likes to cause chaos and fear," he muttered, glancing back and scowling at Stiles.

Stiles held up his hands. "I didn't do it, don't look at me."

"We know that," Allison said placating, giving Isaac a quick glance, before scowling back at the Inn herself."But still, I wonder why it targeted us, in particular." She slowed her pace as they got closer to the cars, her mom already leaning against theirs, waiting. And Boyd leaning against Derek's Camero for some reason, like he was waiting for them.

"I wonder if it's because I'm a hunter," she said, adding her mom into the conversation, “the reason i was targeted.”

"I'm not sure," Victoria said, lips thinned, "but I do know that we all need to stay out of here." She glanced around at everyone, and then focused on Allison, "We need to look into our archives and see if we can figure anything out. Or your father might be able to think of something I haven't."

Allison nodded and started into the car.

"Can I help?" Scott blurted, then looked guiltily down when Victoria leveled a dark look at him. "You know, being a supernatural creature, I might have a different perspective on..." Scott glanced up hopefully.

She barely repressed an irritated eye roll, but nodded curtly. She was clearly not happy about it as she ordered Scott into the back seat. But she let it happen.

Isaac's tension level seemed to go up, and without someone to rant to, he turned to Stiles, who was walking with Derek towards Boyd, Erica (unhappy), Lydia, and the Camaro.

"This is all your fault," Isaac muttered, and Stiles didn't gainsay him.

It kind of was. And he knew Isaac was still a bundle of nerves and fear, and if he needed to use Stiles as a verbal punching bag for a minute, he was fine with that. As long as the punching stayed verbal.

"If you hadn't stuck your nose where it didn't belong, the we wouldn't be in this..."

But Boyd was frowning, and pushed away from the Camaro, crossing his arms and staring at Isaac.

"Calm down," he said, a warm warning in his voice, "it's not like he did it on purpose, Isaac."

Isaac's brows shot up, surprised that Boyd took Stiles' side. That had never happened before. Then his brows shot down.

"Fine,” he said, "I guess I'll go where I'm allowed to express my opinion."

He stalked back over to the Argent's car, moments before it was going to pull away, and knocked on the side. After poking his head in the window for a moment, the back door popped open and he hopped inside with one betrayed backwards glance.

Stiles turned back to Boyd, after a quick glance to Derek, who was still in his own world, lost in thought. He hadn't noticed, he guessed.

Stiles tilted his head. "Why did you do that?" He asked, trying to read Boyd's face, but failing.

Boyd shrugged, gave him an odd, lopsided smile. “Just because we're not friends doesn’t mean I want you to have to go through this crap and get blamed for it. You made a mistake, we all do it.”

Stiles glanced at Lydia, who's eyes were narrowed. Good, so he wasn't the only one who thought that was odd and strange and unusual. That was reassuring.

But she shook it off with a flip of her hair, and took Stiles by the arm, effectively distracting him.

“Before I got here I did some research. The fire that burned it up? They still don't know what caused it. This was a sweet little place. Cute little bed and breakfast. Just a few cases of wild animals killing deer and dragging them up nearby, but nature reserve, right? Comes with the territory."

She glanced at Derek, then at the other wolves, lips curling slyly before she got back on track.

“But the fire-it's strange." She shook her head. "I need to go more in depth. There's one case of a small fire in the paper a few weeks before the big one. But the wording in the article, it's exactly the same. Weird.” She widened her eyes meaningfully.

Stiles could still feel Derek nearby, with his uncomfortable, brooding energy getting overpowering. He knew that Derek just needed to get away. And he just had the perfect opportunity to give him some space.

"So maybe we hit the library or something and do some research," he said slowly, a little hesitantly.

"That's exactly what I was thinking," she said with a grin, and Stiles couldn't help but return it.

He quickly told Derek about their plan, and followed Lydia to their car as Derek talked to Boyd and Erica about their experiences. He would get filled in on the details later.

He had to get away from the creepy feeling of the inn reaching out for him, and broody, distant yet overprotective boyfriend zone for a while.

  
  


Stiles was banned from the downstairs department of the library, with the periodicals and the microfiche. Not by a library administrator or anything, but by Lydia.

For 'being unhelpful and disruptive' as if he would ever do any of that. And maybe partly because he'd almost broken the machine.

Still, he was exiled upstairs to the main department, and decided to use his time in a productive way, since Lydia didn’t seem to think that was possible and he just wanted to prove her wrong.

He was still fuming, his arms loaded down with books, on mythological creatures, and a few on arson and criminals. He was thinking more along the lines of the myth books. He found one on [find a myth creature based around fire other than the phoenix maybe salamanders or something] that seemed promising. Maybe it was some sort of beast that caused the fire after being drawn into beacon hills, and making the place its home.

He realized at that point that Lydia had just manipulated the hell out of him. She had gotten irritated of him getting in her way and cracking jokes so she had pretended to get angry at him in a way to make him angry enough to get him to do something useful. He felt violated. But a bigger part of him was impressed that she was subtle enough for it to take him this long to figure it out.

Still, the revelation made him stop stock still halfway down the stairs, and person he hadn't realized was behind him on the staircase stumbled into him and had to grab the bannister for support to keep from falling.

Stiles threw out a hand, dropping his books, and it landed the person's chest.

"Sorry," he muttered, looking up, "I didn't mean to...hi...Boyd," Stiles said, tilting his head a little as he dropped his hand. "I didn't expect to see you here."

Boyd shrugged, and helped him pick up the books scattered around down the stairs.

"Didn't plan on it," he said gruffly, "thought I'd stop and see how it was going."

He handed Stiles a children's book on dragons that had looked shiny and cool. "Not too good, huh?"

Stiles quickly grabbed the book with a muttered explanation of 'light reading' mixed with 'picked it up for my cousin' which sounded a lot like 'light my cousin'. So it was well enough that his mythical young cousin didn't exist, and he tried not to look too suspicious under Boyd's scrutiny.

"So why are you really here, huh?" Stiles asked, remembering that that wasn’t the first instance of Boyd acting oddly that day. "I know you're not telling me something."

Boyd thinned his lips, but then relaxed and rolled his shoulders, fighting off a tension from setting in there.

"You're right," he admitted, leaning back against the brick wall along the stairs, shoving his hands in his pockets. "It's about Erica," he said, "she's acting...weird."

"Weird, how?" Stiles asked, stepping up closer and trying to get a read on Boyd.

Boyd pulled his hands out of his pockets and started tapping them against the wall at his back, jerky, uncomfortable movements. Not at all like himself.

He shrugged. "I don't know, I'm not sure what it is, but there's something I can't quite put my finger on. some sort of oddness going on." He finally looked up at Stiles.

"Ever get that feeling?"

"Yeah," Stiles said, studying Boyd, "I get that."

They spoke for a little longer, Stiles still unable to figure out the odd thing going on with Boyd, and him worried about Erica being off. He told him to keep an eye on her, and if it kept on, get in touch with Derek. But he tried to play it off.

"You know, it might just be something residual bugging her from that thing at the inn," he said, and Boyd nodded.

"You may be right," he murmured, gave Stiles a quick smile, and left.

Stiles waited for his steps to stop echoing up the stairwell before falling back against the wall, exactly where Boyd had been leaning, and closing his eyes.

“I didn't know you two were friends.”

Stiles jumped away from the wall and might have almost fell backwards down the stairs, before Danny grabbed him by the shirt.

"Jesus Christ, does everybody in town spend their weekends learning. That is so sad," he babbled as he righted himself.

Then he hesitated and stared after Boyd, even though he was long gone.

”Neither did I,” he said quietly.

  
  


Stiles spoke with Danny for a few minutes, but he seemed to be in a hurry to get to the library's computers to do something, so he said goodbye rather quickly.

He found himself a little table in a corner near a window on the middle level, away from Lydia and with the sun streaming in through the gap heavily curtained window. He picked up the top book in his stack and slid the others back, out of the way.

"Let's see what happens to Suzie the Dragon," he said quietly to himself, hunching over the table and getting started.

Stiles eventually got started on his actual important research, after discovering that sad little Suzie just had to grow into her wings before she could learn to fly. He read up on the phoenix, the [blank and the blank, —look up creatures to add in-]and some of the creatures seem interesting, but he doesn't think they caused the fire.

He moved on to the technical and biographic books on arson and arsonists, but his eyes quickly glazed over and he felt something starting to nag at him. He rubbed a hand over his eyes and actually paid attention to his body.

Oh. He had to pee. And the restrooms were downstairs, in the basement area with Lydia's stuff. Maybe he could make a run for it and get to the bathroom without her yelling at him.

He took off for the staircase, not stopping to right the chair that he knocked over. He hopped over a dog standing in the middle of the library, weird, and made it to the staircase.

He started down the stairs, feeling cooler than they were earlier, and rounded the corner...

To see another set of stairs.

Stiles slowed down, but kept going around the stairs, even though he knew they shouldn't be there.

"Huh..."

He traced his fingers along the cold brick wall and sped his pace again, stumbling as he reached a landing type of thing. Stiles closed his eyes for a second, and then opened them back up and kept going.

Around the corner he found another set of stairs, leading downward, to curve around out of sight. He ran down them, and then it happened again. And again.

Stiles whimpered, deep in his throat.

“If I'm stuck in Groundhog's Day with a full bladder...”

Stiles took a deep breath and tried one more time.

Only to be stuck with another flight of stairs below him.

His eye twitched and he growled under his breath.

He turned around, planning on going back up the stairs, but as soon as he spun around, everything changed.

He was outside in the dark, in the woods, somewhere. He could feel something watching him and smell honeysuckle on the air. He closed his eyes to see if his other senses could pick up anything his eyes couldn't.

Slowly, his ears straining, he started to hear something rhythmic. It was breathing, panting. And it was right behind him.

Stiles spun around, arm flying out, and it connected with something solid. It was a bare, male, human chest, cloaked in shadows cast by the trees around them. His fingers splayed against that broad chest, his own hand looking pale and ghostly, as if it were glowing, giving off light that cleared his view of the pectorals.

He didn't know what he expected, or why he hesitated, but the moment seemed to drag out for years as he looked up into an unfamiliar, square-jawed face mostly obscured by shadow.

"Who are you?"

The chest under his hand rose sharply as the man inhaled, and he saw the faint paleness of teeth as he opened his mouth to speak.

CRASH.

Stile let out a shriek that wouldn't have been out of place in a slasher movie and jumped up from his cozy table, spinning around in place and looking for the threat. And fell over a chair.

Lydia was staring down at him with an expression of mixed amusement and sympathy. But amusement was winning as she offered him a hand and helped him disentangle from his chair and right it.

"Sorry," she said, a laugh warming her tone beyond its normal sharpness, "I didn't think that would happen."

"Yeah, well, now you know," Stiles said sharply, his face burning like crazy, "books are dangerous and dropping them next to peoples' heads while they're sleeping can cause bad things to happen. Bad. Things." He scowled down accusingly at Suzie the Dragon's laughing face and compulsively, with one jerky motion, slid her off the table and across the room, cluttering into the side of the nearest bookshelf.

Lydia actually laughed at that, and he felt mollified as she, businesslike again, spread an old newspaper out on the table in front of them.

“I found this," she said, scanning it and trying to find her place, "I had a feeling there would be more to it than the little scanning I found online.”

It was an addition at the bottom of an obit section, below photos of quite a few people with smiling faces and a striking resemblance. She read it aloud.

“After the fire at the [NAME THE INN ALREADY] inn two days ago, two young males are unaccounted for, and one unidentified body, not matching either of theirs, has been found in the rubble. As well as the eight other deaths. If you have any information on these individuals contact..." she trailed off, and looked up at Stiles.

"I've been looking for other mentions of these three, but there's nothing. It's like their existence was forgotten right after that little weird addition was added. They just fell off the face of the planet."

Stiles frowned down at the paper, trying not to look at the photo of the happy family in the picture. Lydia noticed his discomfort and quickly closed it with a muttered apology.

"I, uh, didn't find any arsonist creatures or ghosts in my research," he said uncomfortably, still staring down at the closed paper, "ghosts can sometimes cause electrical disturbances, though, or manipulate electrical appliances, so I guess it could be possible that this thing was always there, and got angry, and then it just caused the fire to run everyone out or something..but..."

He shrugged.

But Lydia was frowning, staring into the distance.

"If a ghost could manipulate electrical currents..." she looked at Stiles, "the human body is run because of electrical signals. So, theoretically, a ghost could manipulate a human body."

She looked down at the table, so she didn't have to look at him, Stiles knew.

"If it knows how to use electricity, there are two possibilities. One: it uses the electrical firings of your brain and spinal column to manipulating you into injuring yourself."

"But that first set of scratches on my back," Stiles started, "there's no way..."

"Or," she continued, "it might have some way to absorb the energy you're putting off, letting it build up, until it has the power to hurt you on its own volition."

She finally looked back up at him, worry creasing her face.

"And what about dreams," he asked, quietly, "could it mess with my dreams?"

Lydia's face crumpled a little further, sympathy coming off of her in waves. After the stuff that had happened, Stile had really reached out to her, and became a real friend. He could practically feel her reply.

"Well, a person is most vulnerable while sleeping," she said softly, "and if the ghost knows how to use the electrical charges to manipulate brain activity..." but she shrugged. "But it might not be a ghost at all," she said quickly, "it could be something.."

"Something even more fun and exciting," Stiles said, waving his hands around crazily.

Lydia let out a tired sigh.

"Let's get out of here."

"Thought you'd never ask," he said, relief flooding over him, "but there's just one thing I need to do first."

He still really had to pee.

  
  


Lydia was kind enough to give him a ride to the local diner, the same one where he had talked to his dad around a week earlier before doing the most stupid thing he had done in his life. And that was saying something...

Though she did kind of drive double digits over the speed limit because they had lost track of time at the library and managed to make her late for her date with Jackson, which she totally blamed on Stiles. Loudly and waspishly, as she drove down the road, using far more hand gestures and looking at him a lot more often than he felt was completely safe.

After apologizing, multiple times, at varying frequencies, until she finally registered it, he slumped down in his seat and checked his phone when it buzzed.

He was surprised to see a message from Isaac. He didn't even know he had his number.

 _Sorry I called you a stupid idiot who couldn’t keep his nose out of trouble._ Stiles grinned, despite the burn.

_You called me a stupid idiot?_

_If I didn't I heavily implied it. Also, I hope you've made more progress with Lydia researching than we have._

_Probably not. Found some stuff, not much. The Argents' books not helpful?_

Stiles waited a little longer for a reply after that one, and had to grab onto the door to keep from flying through the windshield as Lydia had to slam the breaks at a red light.

"Sorry," she said, sounding like she actually meant it, "but you really should be wearing a seat belt."

"But I can see the diner right..." Stiles motioned at the sign a few blocks down for the diner.

But Lydia didn't blink, so he huffed out a sigh and buckled up as his phone buzzed again.

_Not exactly. We got distracted._

Stiles started to text back 'by what?' But after a moment of consideration, he realized he really didn't want to know. He got a second text before he thought of what to reply.

_But we're on track now. Will let you know if we find anything._

Stiles sent back a simple thanks, leaving unspoken his relief that Isaac wasn't mad at him anymore and that apparently they were friendly enough to text now. He probably owed that to Scott, but Isaac still had not had to take the effort. But he did. And Stiles was thankful.

"Get out."

Stiles looked up, realizing Lydia was stopped in the parking lot with a vehicle pulling in behind her.

"Oh, I didn’t realize."

"It's okay, just shoo, hurry," she said, distracted, but then she caught herself, remembering that the world didn't revolve around her, Stiles thought, and she looked at him, that worry back.

"I'm not finished with this," she promised, "we'll figure it out."

"Thanks," Stiles said, feeling more warmly towards her after escaping the vehicle. "I appreciate it." He swung the door closed and started for the diner.

He saw Boyd and Erica on one side of a table near the window, with matching uncomfortable postures, and Derek on the other, still looking subdued and thoughtful.

"Well this is going to be fun," he muttered to himself, heading for the door.

Derek looked up sharply and turned to catch his eye. And Stiles remembered super wolf hearing as he pulled the heavy door open and stepped inside. How did he keep forgetting that?

"So, how's everybody doing?" he asked after they all settled in to wait for their food. Though he could tell a lot by body language and expressions already. He had to talk about something so why not go with the obvious?

After a weird, moody silence in which the wolves all avoided his eye, Stiles gave up and pulled out the salt and pepper shakers on the table, and started building a tower.

After the addition of the napkin dispenser, it came crashing down, and it was, strangely enough, Erica who broke first.

She stopped leaning over the table and splayed her hands out across it, showing the claws she'd been hiding under the table.

Derek's eyes narrowed. "What's wrong?" he asked sharply.

  
  


She flexed her hands and the claws slid smoothly away. "I'm not sure," she said, sounding genuinely puzzled, almost academically, about it.

"I'm not angry. I feel a little on edge, and there's a burn to it, but," she hesitated, glanced at Boyd, who smiled at her in an odd, lopsided way. But she apparently found it reassuring. "It's like I'm feeling a distant anger, and sadness, and a few other things that are all mixed together so they make me queasy. But it's all faraway. Like it's not really me."

Her eyes flashed, and Stiles registered that they looked odd, a weird air of superiority, but before he could get a good look, the door behind him pinged open with that obnoxious little bell making him jump around. He met a pair of cool blue eyes that squinted in amusement, lips quirking up sardonically, before he dismissed Stiles without so much as a nod and move up to lean against the counter top next to the cash register.

"Nice coat." Boyd said, craning around to get a better look.

Stiles looked back around at Boyd and tilted his head.

"What?" he asked, a little defensively, fingers pounding out a gentle rhythm on the table, "It is a cool coat."

Stiles shook his head. That was weird, but Boyd didn't seem to be worried, so he turned his attention back to Erica.

Only to see her eying Boyd stealing fries off of her plate.

“what the hell are you doing?”

“Stealing food,” Boyd said evenly.

Erica stared at him, eyes cold, calculating.

“Maybe he’s hungry,” stiles said defensively, not sure why.

“It’s not that,” Erica says, still staring at Boyd oddly, “Boyd is a documented foe of the potato.”

“Oh. What? How?”

Boyd dropped the fires in distaste. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” He made a face.

“Seriously? They’re great. Potatoes are versatile. You can fry them into delicious crunchy things or make them into soup! If you don’t think that’s amazing, there’s no hope for you.”

Blank look.

Stiles sighed. “Yeah, you’re hopeless.” He turned back to Erica.

"So Erica, what's..." Stiles trailed off with a sigh. She wasn't paying him any attention. She was staring at the guy who had scared the bejesus out of him and then laughed about it. Well laughed without laughing. What a dick.

Stiles glanced over his shoulder again. But he had to admit, Boyd was right. It was a nice coat.

  
  


Stiles never managed to get back on track with Erica. She was distant and distracted until their food arrived, and then Stiles was as silent as everyone else as they ate, with Boyd making a few more strange comments that pinged on Stiles' radar,m but he still didn’t know what was going on with that and neither of them seemed to be in immediate danger, so Stiles took the wait and see approach.

At least neither of them had been scratched or clawed up. So that was a plus.

He left with Derek, who had been quiet through lunch, thoughtful, after his initial worry about Erica.

As soon as he started up the car and pulled out onto the highway, he finally spoke up.

“Deaton called.”

Stiles waited for him to elaborate.

When he didn't, he gave in and spoke up.

”Why didn't you say anything? What's wrong?” he knew by the way Derek was gripping the steering wheel, super tight, that it wasn't good news.

”I'm not sure what Deaton did, but he figured out something. This thing’s pulling energy from nature, from energy currents of world itself." He paused long enough to glance at Stiles, when he didn't act suitably surprised.

"Yeah, Lydia and I realized that it could have been pulling energy from me, or manipulating my energy, and as strong as it is, it's not that surprising that it could pull from nature."

Derek nodded, "Makes sense. Did you notice that there were no plants growing up through the inn? Not a green thing in sight in there. There should be." He paused, took a breath. "It's been years since the fire. The earth should have reclaimed that place by now."

Stiles looked at Derek, really looked at him. He was staring straight ahead, his expression inscrutable and lips thinned as he paid attention too the road. But there was a flicker of something as he glanced at Stiles out of the corner of his eye before turning attention back to the road.

"That's why you didn't want me out there, isn't it?" he asked quietly, as gently as he could. But Derek's entire being tensed, as if he'd yelled it out at the top of his lungs. "You don't want the place. You want the reserve to take it over and wild things to grow over it, obscure it, reclaim it as a part of the earth where there is life. You wanted the building to remain at rest...at what you thought was at rest."

"Life arising from death," Derek said, his words short and clipped.

But Stiles knew that was because he didn't want to sound emotional, so he didn’t wince at the rough tone.

"Like a phoenix," Stiles said quietly, thinking back to the books he had just looked over earlier.

Derek glanced at him, gave a quick nod before turning back to the road.

"And that's why you've been so freaked out isn't it and all reserved and weird. You thought the place would be growing with plants and little furry animals and life arising from it, but it's not. It's cold, and empty. It's still the same. It's like a...a..."

"A tomb," Derek supplied, "It's like a tomb."

In those few words, Stile heard the emotions that Derek had been keeping in check all day, repressing or just hiding he wasn't sure. But he was the cause of it. Isaac was right in the first place. He was a stupid idiot who didn't know how to leave well enough alone.

He turned sideways in his seat, almost getting choked by his seat belt but quickly adjusting it.

"Look, Derek, I didn't mean..."

"It's okay," Derek said quickly.

"No it's not. I'm an ass and I should have listened..."

Derek didn't say anything for a minute and pulled the car off to the side of the road before looking back at him.

Stiles started babbling again, but Derek hushed him with a hand on his neck and a steady look in his eyes.

"Stiles, if you hadn't been the curious, irritating person that you are, that thing would still be out there growing stronger, unchecked, possibly for years. And then it would have been even stronger when we did find out about it. So it's kind of a good thing that you did the stupid thing and went out there."

Stiles was quiet. He still felt guilty, but he had a feeling that any further expression of said guilt would lead to irritation or yelling.

Derek saw it in his face and rolled his eyes. "Look, Stiles, this thing, it's messing shit up. Right now, we have to focus and put a stop to it before the universe explodes.”

”Oh, is that all?” he asked, "whew, that's a load off. For a minute there I was worried." He let his sarcasm marinate for a little while before he asked what was nagging at him.

"So, what is it? Did Deaton figure it out?"

Derek shook his head. "Still not sure. But we have to find a way to stop it. And Deaton does have a plan."

Stiles shrugged. It wasn't like anyone else had any ideas to set in motion.

"Let's do it. What's the worst that could happen?"

"The annihilation of the human race and turning the planet into a dystopian desert scape."

But Derek's lips quirked up, so Stiles assumed he was joking.

  
  


Derek got out of the car and started for the woods right outside before glancing back when Stiles didn't immediately follow.

Stiles got out and leaned against the car. "Where are you going?"

"TO look for ingredients for Deaton's spell thing," Derek said, as if it were obvious, "he said he needed a few things, and I said we'd find them."

"Oh." Stiles closed the car door and started around the front end. "So you didn't just randomly stop on the side of the road to talk about your feelings?"

Derek just stared at him as he walked up closer to him. Giving him a patented Hale 'you're a hopeless case and you should feel bad about it' look. He eventually turned around and started picking his way through the trees. "Come on."

"I know, it's sad," Stiles said, "how could I think that you, of all people, would have an emotional conversation on purpose. I should really know better." He stumbled back when Derek let go of a low hanging tree limb and let it hit him in the chest. "Oh, great, that's really mature Derek. Thanks for that."

But then Derek actually chuckled and Stiles didn't feel so irritated anymore for some reason.

"So, what are we looking for?" he asked, noticing the way Derek's eyes were scanning the trees and the brush.

"We're looking for Bay, Jasmine, and Spanish Moss. And the sooner we find the stuff for the spell thing, the sooner we can get some answers." he glanced back, and it struck Stiles how very worried that Derek was.

What else had Deaton told him, that he wasn't sharing?

But Stiles ears picked up the sound of running water. Which Derek had probably heard as soon as he got out of the car.

"So, where’s the water coming from?" he asked, because maybe, the herb things like water or grow close to it.

"Up ahead, and around twenty paces to your left," he said absently, hunching around the roots of a tree to study a plant. He reached out and traced his fingers along a leaf.

"Thanks,paces, who says paces? Are you using a treasure map?" Stiles muttered, and then said louder, "and that's not it." He started forward, getting closer to the water as he watched Derek out of the corner of his eye.

"How do you know?" Derek asked, pulling the little plant taunt and studying it more closely.

"Because that's poison oak," he said.

"Damn it!" Derek jerked away and stumbled upright, holding his hand as far away from him as possible. "Why didn't you say that in the first place?"

But Stiles was too busy laughing at Derek and watching him try to run from his own hand to answer. Honestly, he wasn't sure it was poison oak until Derek had already touched it.

He was so busy laughing that he banged into a tree with his shoulder and fell backwards with a inelegant yelp.

He stayed on the ground and stared at the tree as Derek stomped up. There were deep gouges in and slashes on the tree. He glances up to see Derek still pouting, and let him help him to his feel with his non contaminated hand.

"So, are werewolves immune to poison oak?" Stiles asked, getting to his feet with help and looking around.

It was a good thing he had ran into the tree, because a few paces away was the steep banked stream. He would have walked right over the flat ground, stepped into thin air, pulled a looney toons, and fell right in the water.

Derek shrugged, still holding his hand out as if he were considering amputating it. "I guess we're going to find out."

As Derek leaned down to the little stream to wash his hands, Stiles looked around to get his bearings. He wasn't sure exactly where they were, not until he closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the leaves of the trees rustling in the wind. It had that same creepy pull to it that he felt near the inn.

"Uh, Derek?" Stiles swallowed, opening his eyes and looking off into the distance, where he knew the inn was. "Where exactly are we?"

But Derek was busy by the stream, with his 'out, out, damn spot,' moment, and either didn't acknowledged him or just hadn't heard him.

Stiles, for some reason that he couldn't explain, started walking down the stream, closer to the inn. 'I regret this decision.' kept sliding through his mind on repeat, but another track was playing "I'm just looking for the herbs' and Stiles didn't know who to believe.

But he could feel himself being pulled closer to the Inn, one heavy footstep at a time. Until he heard a strange gurgling in the stream and stopped to investigate. Right below him, there was a deep, clear pool of water with a murky, muddy bottom. But what kept him staring was how vital it was. It was working alive with tadpoles, chilling in the shadows, little dark and silvery fish flittering around darting back and forth. And his eyes tried to follow just one, but he kept getting distracted as others caught his eye.

And somehow, he forgot the Inn, the was it was somehow calling to him, and he just watched those fish dart around and felt his anxiety levels falling, the coiled tension in his neck and his stomach easing, and he relaxed.

He stayed there, even plopped down on the bank and leaned over to see the fish better, until Derek came looking for him.

"What are you doing?" he sounded past irritated, on the way to angry. Which meant he was worried.

"What?" Stiles asked absently, slowly breaking his gaze away from the water.

Derek's arms were loaded with some green thing, and another droopy plant that looked a lot like a plant made net, was hanging from his previously contaminated, hopefully clean, hand.

"Wow, you found it," he said, glancing up at Derek's worried, sweaty face, with traces of dirt and grit on his forehead. He could see the beginnings of a smirk. "Except that's not Spanish moss," he said, getting up and motioning at the plant in Derek’s hand.

Derek gave him a pained look. "It's not poison ivy, is it?"

"What? No, it actually is Spanish moss, but I looked it up. That is California Spanish moss (Ramalina menziesii), and it's actually a fungus, not a moss. It's a misnomer. And what we need is the stuff down south, from Louisiana or Georgia or something. Tillandsia usneoides. Actually, funny thing, that Spanish moss isn't technically a moss either it's a..." He trailed off and glanced up from his phone and saw Derek's blank look.

"So we have to go on a road trip to find some of the stuff?"

Stiles gave him a patronizing look. "Dude, this is the age of instant gratification." Stile pulled out his phone and did a quick search, filled out a few things, and hit enter. "aaaand done."

He grinned at Derek cockily.

"What did you just do?" he looked over Stiles shoulder.

Ebay. Expedited shipping. Also you own me twenty bucks now."

Derek rolled his eyes, and threw the not-Spanish moss over his head before turning his back and walking away. "I'm going to go look for [name the second mystery plant here]." he said, without looking back.

"Okay," Stiles called, trying to detangle his new headdress, "I'll just be over here...suffocating on fungus..."

Stiles was muttering under his breath, "[traits of plant 2]," hunched over and peering into a gap under some briars and brush. He tilted his head and squinted, seeing [main identifying trait].

He straightened up, arched his back to stretch it out. "Typical, that's just typical," he said to himself. Of course the last plant they had to find was hidden behind a force field of protective pokey things.

Stiles took a steadying breath and reached delicately through the maze of briars and managed to grab the plant, but thin he overbalanced and fell arm first into the brambles, thorns cutting into his cheek and arm all the way up to the shoulder as he scrambled to his feet and struggled to get free.

Adrenaline coursing through him, he scrambled away on all fours, crab walking stile, panting, with a few yelled curses. He glared at the brambles for a long moment.

"You stupid evil piece of garbage," he spat, curling his lips in a snarl reminiscent of the wolves, whether intentional or not, he wasn't sure.

But then the brambles moved.

They shook, and shivered. And they snorted and snuffled, breaking away as a big black beast almost as big as he was shoved through them without a thought and Stared down at Stiles.

Stiles' mouth dropped open as he took in stained, yellowed tusks, thick wiry fur, and little hooves. One of which was stamping the ground, pawing.

Stiles wanted to get to his feet and run. Every instinct was telling him to run, but his brain wrestled those instincts down. That was a wild boar, and if he ran, there was the strong possibility that it would chase him. And then he'd be dead. Boars weren't just intimidating to look at, especially this one with its cold eyes and very pointy tusks stained dark on the ends, and its quivering snout. They were vicious and unpredictable.

He took a few deep breaths, getting his mind to focus on that instead of every particle of his being screaming at him to run. But he had to think of something. The boar had stopped pawing, and lowered its head to snuffle at the ground where he'd been standing moments before.

"Nice piggy," Stiles said, and the boar's head shot up, alert to him again. He lowered his tone. "Niiice piggy. I'm your friend, please don't eat me."

Stiles held up both hands, realizing he was still holding [plant 2] in his left. He waved it around a little, got the boar's attention and curiosity. And then he threw it off to his left, as far away as he could.

His hopes rose as the boar raised his head higher to see where it had gone.

Stiles held his breath.

And then turned back to look at him with a patronizing 'do you think I’m that stupid' look.

Stiles slowly got to his feet, thankful for every second that the boar didn't attack, and started backing slowly towards the little stream. Hell, the thing could probably jump it, too, but Stiles didn't have any better plan.

The boar lowered its head again and started following him. "Great," Stiles breathed to himself, "I hang out with werewolves, and I'm gonna get killed by a normal boring boar."

He stumbled over a tree root and the boar attacked, rushing across the distance separating them and Stiles pulled his knees up to protect his middle and threw his arms over his face.

Seconds and inches before the boar reached him, Stiles heard a werewolf snarl, and was never so thankful for the sound as in that moment, as a big blur jumped the stream without slowing down and went after the boar, using his momentum and a shoulder to knock the thing on its side.

In the moments that the boar scrambled to its feet, Stiles was grabbed around the scruff of his neck and hauled back over the stream. There was a terrifying instant during which he was airborne before he tumbled to the ground.

"Oh, Derek, thank..." Stiles slowly got to his feet, fear and shock weighing him down, "Boyd?"

Boyd rolled his shoulders, and his face slid back to normal from scary werewolf. Stiles heard the breaking of brush and twigs as the boar took off, probably wondering what the hell that weird thing that attacked it was, but Stiles was too busy narrowing his eyes at Boyd to pay it too much attention.

"Not that I'm not all thankful for the life saving, but what the hell are you doing here?" he asked.

He heard another, swift crash, but softer, rustling at his back, and knew it was Derek without having to look back.

"I couldn't get here fast enough," he panted, shaking his head, "I shouldn't have left you."

"It's okay," Stiles said softly, giving him what he hoped was a reassuring look. Before turning back to Boyd.

Boyd rubbed a hand over his neck. "I might have followed you," he said, then quickly, "not on purpose. I didn't realize what I was doing until I heard you talking to yourself."

Stiles flushed. It was embarrassing, people hearing you say things for your own ears only. Then he wondered if he'd said anything incriminating.

"Why did you come out here?" Derek asked, moving in to check on Stiles, the cut on his cheek was stinging.

Boyd looked at the ground for a long moment.

"Instinct." he finally said, looking back up at Derek, who turned OT him. "Since that thing at the Inn..." he shook his head, "it's like Erica said, I have these things going through my mind, but they don't really belong to me.

"How is this possible?" Derek asked, looking at Stiles like he would have answers.

Boyd pursed his lips. "I know it sounds crazy, but crazy's our normal, right? Sometimes I'll look at Erica, and I swear it's not her looking back."

That was when something struck Stiles. The thing, Ghost, for lack of a better name, it wasn't the only spirit thingy at the Inn. With so many deaths at that place, it shouldn't be surprising. Another one of them had a hold on Erica. And a different, calmer or kinder one, it had a grip on Boyd.

But he had a feeling, especially with Boyd's, that it was not an immediate threat.

And the sun was starting to sink below the horizon, and he didn't want to be anywhere near the woods and its boar, or the inn and its ghosts, at night, when their power was probably stronger, like with the wolves.

  
  


After his long day, and Derek painstakingly sneaking into his room and cleaning up his 'hiking injuries'(that's what they were, just ask his dad), Stiles was exhausted. Even after his nice creepy nap at the library.

After learning that Ghost creeped on him in his dreams, a part of him never wanted to sleep again. But a bigger part was exhausted and craved a good night's rest.

All of him fell asleep right after his head hit the pillow.

 

Stiles didn't wake up slowly, from a long night's restful sleep in the warmth of his bed and the coziness of his home.

Oh, no. That would have been to normal and boring and his life was nothing like that anymore. He couldn't even sleep without having his mind twisted and his body whisked away without his knowledge.

The first thing he noticed was that he was standing, with bare feet, on a rough, abrasive surface with uneven footing. That was how he regained consciousness, feeling cool chill air whip around him and making his pajamas press close to the skin of his legs and chest. Goosebumps raised over his arms, and a sharper chill raced down his spine, but he really didn't want to open his eyes. He knew that, whatever happened when he did, it would be real. He could tell immediately based on the feel of everything around him that this was reality, not some strong, or even lucid, dream.

"Oh god," he murmured under his breath, reaching out a hand, but only feeling cold, windy air whipping around him.

Slowly, as if that would weaken the psychological blow, he opened his eyes. He saw a sharp staircase with scorched wood and missing steps falling away right below his bare feet. He jerked his arm down and stumbled backwards, falling hard on his ass.

He clutched his hands in his hair. "no, no, no, this isn't happening. This isn't happening."

He felt his heart start fluttering, and he was starting to lose control of his breathing. He got quickly, unsteadily to his feet and started gingerly down the stairs. He was lucky not to have stepped on a rusty nail or gotten a nasty splinter already. He used the faint moonlight pooling inside to pick his way over the uneven, danger-strewn floor.

The task at hand distracted him, took enough of his concentration, that his breathing was almost normal when he reached the front door and the steps leading down. But he still collapsed, exhausted, to that top step and dropped his head between his knees as he tried to get his ragged breathing back under control. Breathe deep into the lungs, then up to the top. Let it out starting at the top, and working down, letting your diaphragm contract to push the air out.

He had to sit upright to get a full, deep lungful, and closed his eyes, trying to focus on his breath instead of the fear trilling through him at having the inn, open and threatening, at his back.

He felt a chill, like icy fingers tickling down his back and grimaced.

“Now is not a good time," he said, a lot more brokenly than he meant to. He was just so damn tired. All he wanted was a good night's sleep. Was that too much to ask for. He took a deep breath and tensed up. "Why are you doing this to me?” he asked roughly, hands tightening into fists and trembling.

A big, rough, invisible hand wrapped around Stiles' belly and for a moment he dropped his head, comforted, his hands loosening and dropping to his sides. The area started to tingle with that strange, almost static injury, and the muscles contracted, pulling at the scrapes there. His mind clicked into action, and he somehow stopped himself from reacting physically. He wondered why he was no longer jumpy with the invisible touch. Especially knowing what they were capable of.

The hand slid up his chest, and Stiles felt the energy surrounding him, warming his chill body, enveloping him in that strange not quite heat, soothing. And Stiles forgot for a minute.

He forgot how dangerous Ghost was, under his gentle touch. Forgot that there could be countless other spirits around, focusing on his friends. Forgot that he didn't know how he got there, and there was no sign of the jeep, so at least he hadn't sleep driven.

He stood up quickly, despite the initial resistance he felt from Ghost.

“Stop that!” He was trembling, but he balled his hands back into fists. For a moment it worked. The violation and creepiness gave strength to his anger and he let it consume him, give him the power to stand up to the unknown Ghost.

But then Stiles had to blink a few times because he saw a darker shape crouched in the doorway, a shadow darker than the shadows. It straightened up to its full height, a few inches shorter that him, but somehow its power made it seem to tower.

"We're going to go over some ground rules, alright." he said, trying, and failing, to make out any identifying characteristics from the shadow.

But that was all it was. A being made of sharp lines in the darkness, eating away any hint of light that was crazy enough to fall across it.

But it tilted its head sharply to the side and Stiles swore that he felt the condescension falling off of it in waves. Like that one little tilt was saying that he was standing on thin ice and dictating the method of his rescue. But Stiles just gave Ghost, the consuming shadow, his best glare and shoved past it.

"Okay, so, first off, stop screwing with Erica," he said roughly.

"That's not me!" Stiles almost jumped out of his skin when the shadow spoke. His voice was high and callus, not the deep grating boom from the fiery pits of hell he would have expected. But the (un)living shadow was fucking talking to him.

And then laughing at him after he made a girly squeak and stumbled a few steps away.

"Shut up," he said weakly, tugging uncomfortably at the sleeve hem of his pajamas and not looking at Ghost. "Then stop your weirdo buddy from screwing with her," he said.

The air around Stiles grew colder, and the feeling sliding off of Ghost felt sickening and sharp.

"I can't stand him. He's weak," Ghost practically snarled, advancing on Stiles.

"Good, that's good, so that means you'll stop him, right?" Stiles said, holding his ground until Ghost stopped, inches from touching him. For a moment he wondered if his hand would disappear within the shadow, if he reached out. Or if it would be solid, unable to pass through.

Ghost didn't say anything, but the energy smoothed into something more soothing, and Stiles had to hold himself to keep from stepping further into the warmth. What the hell was that all about? His freaking body was an idiot.

“And Boyd. Leave him alone.” he said quickly, relieved when Ghost leaned away from him and tilted his head again.

But Stiles didn't pick up any condescension that time, just genuine puzzlement.

“Boyd," he said slowly, tasting the name, "the one on the stairs?"

"So you were watching all of that?" Stiles rushed, and felt Ghost withdraw a little.

"Yes," he said, "this is my place, and you intruded. All of you got what you deserved."

But there was something strange, almost hesitant about Ghost's tone, like he was trying to convince himself of that. Stiles knew he shouldn't push.

"So I deserved getting my gut slashed open in my own damn house after trying to forget about this place? How do I deserve that?"

Stiles felt a sickening wrench of guilt from the shadow in front of him, but a rough roil of anger hit him, too, so suddenly that it felt like his own for a minute. He was being attacked from all sides.

Until a shadow hand reached out and grabbed his wrist. It was cool to the touch and it tingled, with no real mass to it. But the anger receded, leaving Stiles so shaky that he dropped back onto the steps, Ghost kneeling next to him, pressing close from hip to shoulder.

Stiles didn't move away.

"What the hell was that all about?"

Ghost was silent for a long time.

"I have done nothing to Boyd,” he said slowly.

“Well, somebody has!” Stiles cried, fear and frustration getting the better of him, "he's starting to freak me the fuck out."

A not quite hand slid around Stiles waist, and he rolled his eyes, but didn't pull away.

“Perhaps.”

“Ugh!” Stiles pulled away in disgust, "you're just fucking with me, aren't you?"

Stiles saw the shadow shaking oddly, and then heard a deep rumble. He realized he was laughing.

"You know, you're the worst ghost ever. You're supposed to jump out and go boo not fuck with peoples' minds." He said irritably. Crossing his arms and leaning them on his knees.

"The whole boo thing just isn't my style," Ghost said, "too cliche."

"Why me?" Stiles asked, "why did it have to be me?"

Stiles heard a whisper that he didn’t think Ghost meant for him to hear.

"Indeed," Ghost whispered, equal parts puzzlement and affection [or exasperation], "why did it have to be you?"

Stiles felt a little flushed, embarrassed for some undefined reason, and cleared his throat. He wished he had a pen because a cool swooping design had just popped into his mind. He made himself focus.

"So, will you kick the thing that's messing with Erica's ass?" he finally asked.

"Yes, I will help her," Ghost said, and Stiles relaxed, "under one condition."

Stiles tensed. "You don't want to take me to the underworld to be your queen, do you?" he asked. He felt a heavy wave of irritation and grudging amusement and had to purse his lips to keep from grinning.

"No," Ghost said with incredible restraint, "if that were the case, you would wind up being the darling of every demon in hell, and dethrone me."

Stiles was at a complete loss for words. For one thing, he didn't know it that was an insult or a compliment, calling him an equal to demons, or so awesome as to win them over; for another, Ghost's tone had been too warm for him to mistake it for anything other than affection.

Stiles let the silence build for a little while. "You know, that would actually be kind of awesome, if you want to reconsider..."

"I am not Satan, you idiot," Ghost snapped.

"Oh," Stiles should not feel disappointed at that.

"Just let me show you something, and I'll help your damn friend," Ghost said quickly, before they got derailed any further.

"Fine," Stiles said quickly, lulled into a false sense of security by witty banter. "Oh, crap."

But it was too late. A cool hand was pressing icy fingers to his neck, and the dim world around him tunneled down to black, before going blindingly bright.

  
  


Stiles felt strange. He knew it wasn't rational. It was as far from rational on the spectrum as it was possible to be. But he was starting to like Ghost.

Well, he was starting to like the ghost who snipped at him and complisulted him and occasionally the clingy Ghost was okay, even though he had a feeling that Derek wouldn't approve. Actually, Stiles probably shouldn't tell Derek about clingy Ghost at all, or he'd start trying to rip the throats out of shadows and that could only end badly.

But then there was the Dangerous one. Well, all of Ghost was dangerous, but the part of him that clawed and scratched and threw things and locked people into tiny rooms. That worried and frightened him.

Stiles kept forgetting that they were all one and the same. The evil douche was the clingy weirdo was the witty sparring partner. The idea just gave him cognitive dissonance, and it was weird.

And the dragon thing. Don't even get him started on the dragon thing.

He tried to keep that in mind as the world around him dimmed down from brilliantly bright and blinding to sharp rays of sunlight burgeoning the dawn.

He tried to keep that in mind as the world around him dimmed down from brilliantly bright and blinding to sharp rays of sunlight burgeoning the dawn.

Stiles could still feel the cold night air whipping his pajamas around, could still feel Ghost's chill fingers on his neck. But what he saw in front of him was beautiful golds and peaches of the sunrise streaming through the trees in front of the inn. Looking further down, he saw the trunks of the distant trees and a well kept lawn, and a looping gravel drive offset with bright, cheerful flowers and plants, leading up to the very entrance, where he stood, and then curving back behind the building for parking, closer to the highway.

Stiles saw the inn as it was before the fire. Beautiful and warm to the eyes, and cozy with a gorgeous view of nature.

Through the trees, he noticed fog curling and rising in the distance, and absently thought there must be a lake out there somewhere. Part of him wanted to go out and explore it, but then reality started to crash back over him.

If he wandered, it would be outside in the dark, in a world different from what he was seeing. He couldn't.

The hand on his neck slid down to his shoulder. Stiles looked around and almost jumped. He could actually see it, as a big, blunt nailed hand, and not a shadow. When the hand gave his shoulder a squeeze, he looked slowly up a veined arm and saw a familiar (he got a flash of bright teeth in a shadowed wood, the dream from the library) square jawed, yet angular face.

Ghost looked tired and thin lipped with anger, but not at Stiles. His hands trembled, but his touch was gentle. His voice was soft as silk, but cutting.

That gentleness was what scared Stiles the most about Ghost. It made him even more dangerous.

“I didn't want to hurt you," he said, "the second time. The first, I wanted you out. I didn't know..." he was silent for a long moment.

"You didn't know what?" Stiles said, craning his neck uncomfortably, because he didn't want Ghost to pull away. He didn't want to stop seeing the warm columns of the Inn, the honeysuckle climbing up the trellis, scenting the air so sweetly.

Ghost swallowed, and seemed to have an inner argument. But he shook his head, looking away.

"I had to do something, to get your attention. You were trying to forget, starting to forget about me." His grip on Stiles' shoulder tightened, fingers digging into the muscle, "I couldn't let that happen. Not after you..." he looked down, slackened his grip when Stiles started wincing away, and turned him around, searching for something in his face that Stiles didn't understand, "not after you woke me up."

"I..I'm not an alarm clock for ghosts," Stiles snapped more roughly than he meant, "and that's no excuse for you to use me as a scratching post, either, buddy."

Ghost's face twisted up into a snarl. "There was no other way to get your attention,” he said slowly, "and all I want is one thing. Something about you got under my skin. I couldn't just let you think i was a figment."

"Yeah, to haunt the hell out of me until i go insane," Stiles said.

"I want you to help me."

Stiles was quite for a long moment, sure that he'd misheard.

"I've been here, in a constant loop of torment, in fucking agony the likes of which you can't even begin to imagine." He said, "I just want it to stop. I just want to be at peace."

Stiles saw a small tic around Ghost's eye, a wholly too innocent mask twisting his face.

Stiles didn't for a second think to trust him. He knew that, if Ghost could being him there, he could do just about anything. But he was totally alone with him, so saying 'fuck you and your creepy ghost ass' was a bad idea.

Ghost stepped closer in to him again, suddenly wide eyed and sincere.

“I don't know you, and I don't know why I brought you here," he said, but when Stiles started to ask how, he spoke over him, "I have no memory of myself, just this place, the way it looked before it died. And the pain, the constant unending pain that has been my excuse for a life for all of time. Who are you?" Ghost grabbed him by the arms, and leaned in until their noses almost bumped, searching for something in his eyes, "Why do I want you so badly?”

Stiles had had enough, he backed up, out of Ghost's grip, surprised when the world stayed bright around them. Something felt off, dishonest, about what Ghost was saying. 

“That's creepy. You're creepy. I'm leaving,” he said, looking around for a way to turn off the weird vision. There had to be something. Maybe like a light switch on a tree or something. But he quickly gave up his search under Ghost's scrutinizing gaze and started walking down a gravel drive that didn't have as much give as it should, his bare feet tender as he walked.

Part of him was afraid Ghost wound try to stop him, but he didn't.

“You'll be back soon," he said, and then softer, "In the mean time, you carry a part of me with you.”

Stiles shuddered.

“Creepy!”

He heard a chuckle next to his ear and woke up sharply, his head resting on his knee, sitting on the steps.

He stood up quickly, tried to shake the crazy off of him, and ignored any creepy feelings that came over him.

“Yeeeah, I'm out of here.”

 

Stiles knew it was stupid. Very stupid. But he still stalked off away from the inn in his bare feet, towards the deserted road a few dozen yards away.

From what he could gather it was somewhere around three or four am, and it was still full on dark. He could barely see where he was going, and stuck to the side of the road, halfway hoping a car would drive by, but halfway hoping that he wouldn't have to see any cars, just in case the driver happened to be an ax murderer. Or worse.

He felt a deep sense of unease, but the surface level panic was dulled down and no longer consuming him.

He had no cell phone, no car, hell, he didn't even have shoes. His only hope was the service station around a mile down the road and its payphone. Which had a history of getting broken or graffiti for the sheer hell of it. His dad complained about it a few times, wheedling, as if he thought Stiles was somehow involved in its destruction.

It wasn't his fault that his best friend had a bit of a temper tantrum and broke the thing down. But that was just one time. And it was months ago. So hopefully it was working.

  
  


After a long walk, stepping on a prickly plant and hobbling up to the darkened gas station with its one streetlight, Stiles was home free. He was thankful to see that the pay phone looked shiny and new and in working order.

He picked it up off of the cradle, listened to the recording, and then threw it back down with a half-sob, half-scream.

"Money, you idiot, you need money to operate a pay phone. Pay. It's right there in the descriptive adjective."

He stepped gingerly across the parking lot, avoiding oil slicks and cigarette butts and a few things that he didn't want to identify, with his eyes glued to the ground. He was looking for the gleam of a coin in the dim glow of the streetlamp.

He was getting increasingly frustrated as he crossed the lot, finding only around five useless pennies and one nickle. Then he did a second trip, anger starting to boil over into an impending rage, and decided to try around the back of the building, straining his eyes to see in the dark.

Eventually, he found a quarter, but that was still twenty cents off.

He started to drop down against the gritty side of the building and just wait for the damn place to open, but instead he straightened his arm and pushed away, making himself plod over to the phone and drop his coins in.

He closed his eyes and listened to the recording, whimpering under his breath. He pleaded with the robot voice. "Come on, just this once, do me a favor, please," he said desperately, "I know a day is coming when machines will become sentient, and later take over the planet, but right now can you just help me out this once? I promise I'll help you take over the planet. I know the weaknesses of all these squishy human ones, and I'll tell you everything. Everything you need to know to defeat us. And all it'll cost you is a measly quarter. Hell, twenty cents, I'll go as low as that!"

Stiles held his breath.

"If you would like to make a call..."

"Grrah!" He slammed down the phone, and the coins dropped back down into the dispenser.

Stiles sighed and crooked his finger inside, and pulled out two quarters and a nickle. He stared at the payphone, dumbfounded, for a good two and a half minutes.

"No," he said, considering. Then he shook himself. "No, there was already a quarter in there, somebody just forgot their change. I'm sure that's it."

But a niggling doubt voiced itself in the back of his mind. _Didn't I already check the slot for change?_ He honestly couldn't remember.

He leaned away from the machine for another minute, studying it warily. "Uh, thanks? If you are sentient. And uh," Stiles paused for a long moment, having a fierce internal debate. He had given the pay phone his word, and it's not like he could break it, right?

"If..if you really do need to take over the world, I guess, uh," he shrugged, "well, you're a phone, so I guess you can call me."

Stiles hesitantly slipped the coins in, thankful to hear a dial tone and not a robotic voice ordering him to betray all of humanity, and made his call.

"Scott," he said, as a groggy voice answered, "I need a really huge favor, dude. Also, if machines ever try to take over the world, come see me. I think I have an ally."

"What?" Scott sounded awake at that.

"Oh, good, you're awake now. I need you to come pick me up."

Fifteen minutes later, Stiles was sitting uncomfortably in the passenger seat of his own Jeep. He didn't ask how Scott had stolen it without alerting his dad. He really didn't need to know.

"So, what exactly is going on?" Scott asked, breaking the silence as they headed into town, the sun starting to rise, throwing off shades of yellow and gold in the clouds.

Stiles started to brush it off, lie, but sleepwalking was a little unbelievable, and this was Scott. He studied Scott, his eyes still droopy with sleep, wearing his own pajamas and flip flops, out before five am to pick him up with no questions asked.

He opened his mouth and let the truth spill out. All of it.

  
  


"Dude," Scott breathed, and it said a multitude.

Stiles thinned his lips and nodded.

"Yeah."

"Derek doesn't know half of this does he?"

Stiles shook his head. "Are you kidding? He would be out destroying the countryside or something if he knew about the creepy bad touch stuff still going on and..." Stiles went quiet quickly, feeling guilt twinge in his belly.

"And?" Scott looked away from the road for a few seconds too long to try to read him.

Stiles looked down and mumbled to his chest. "And the Ghost thing, I'm not always sure how I feel about it."

Scott was silent, and Stiles didn't know if it was his imagination or not, but he felt like Scott was judging him hardcore. "I mean, yeah, he's an evil douche most of the time, but there's also this weirdness and it's not even angry and it feels soft and even a little bit kind, if you know what I mean."

"Honestly, no," Scott said, "but if you feel like it's not all bad, then maybe it's not."

Stiles' tension eased a little.

"Or maybe he's just trying to manipulate you, get on your good side."

Stiles felt a headache starting to pound in his left temple. "Maybe," he said, so freaking tired, but knowing he would never, ever be able to sleep again. He rubbed a hand over his face, but straightened quickly when Scott sped right past the turnoff heading for his house.

"Um, you just missed...the road."

"No I didn't," Scott said [word that means securely].

"I'm pretty sure you did," Stiles said, too tired to get worked up. If Scott wanted to kidnap him, then he was fine with it. At least he was semi conscious this time.

"Nope," Scott said cheerfully, "we're going to find a place that serves a really early breakfast, drink a ton of coffee, and then figure out what the hell is going on and how to fix it."

"I love you." It slipped out before Stiles' sarcasm censor could stop it. Some genuine, candid, emotionality. He cringed, but Scott grinned.

"I know," he said.

Stiles frowned, something didn't add up. "Did you just Han Solo me?"

Scott tilted his head, glancing away from the road again. "Who's Han Solo?"

Stiles grimaced. "Ugh, I take it all back. You're a bad person who doesn't appreciate good films."

"Stiles, how many times do I have to tell you, I TRIED to watch those movies, but they always put me to sleep. Literally."

Stiles grunted, but he felt a warm fondness burning off the creepy chill still there in the pit of his stomach.

 

It was still morning, but the sun was up high in the sky and people were piling in to the local church, but Stiles drove on past. Neither he nor his father had been inside since his mother died.

Scott was content in the passenger seat, after their overlong breakfast and getting kicked out of the restaurant, and then going on a quick trip home for normal people clothes and his cell phone.

He had a missed call from Deaton. Stiles wondered when he got his number as he called back, and was offered a lesson on the mystical properties of herbs and he was back out the door with Scott trailing after him within moments.

The clinic was cool and silent, with just the back lights on when they walked inside, after using Scott's key. It was kind of creepy.

Especially when Deaton seemed to pop out of nowhere and scared the bejesus out of him. Scott hadn't flinched. He had heard Deaton's heartbeat, he guessed. But hadn't warned him.

He just widened his eyes at Stile innocently, and they had all stepped into the back, where Deaton's magical herb chest thing was sitting open on the counter top.

Stiles loomed over it, but his hand was knocked away before he could touch anything.

"Careful," Deaton said in his low, calm tone, "some of this stuff is volatile, and it's not always obvious from first glance."

"If it's volatile, then how do people not, like, accidentally blow themselves up with plants and stuff in nature," Stiles said, studying the vials and packets and Ziploc bags of dried herbs. But he kept his hands on the table.

Deaton's lips twitched a little and he reached inside, taking out one small bottle filled with what looked like red and black powder.

"Ash and blood root," he said, handing the bottle to Stiles, who turned it over, mixing the powders a little, though they didn't seem to want to go together.

"The most powerful protective charms you can create," he said, "it has to be prepared precisely, or else it won't work, or it could cause backfire, and cause harm on the wielder."

Stiles set down the bottle quickly and looked down. Then he did a double take, because the red and black swirls were back to the way they were before he picked it up. He glanced up at Deaton, who nodded, before just tapping the side of the bottle. The powders swirled like fluid at his touch, but then went still as he quickly straightened up and leaned away.

"So, uh, I take it these aren't just stuff you find in the garden, or out in the woods."

"Some of them are," Deaton said, pulling out a bunch of stalks tied together with pale green, fuzzy leaves sticking out. "Sage," he said, "a natural purifier." He put it down. "But most have to be prepared in a certain way in order to work properly."

"How do you do that?" Stiles asked.

Deaton smiled in a way Stiles meant that he wasn't going to say.

  
  


"I need the Spanish moss and the other things for a ritual, to connect with this thing and force this being to reveal its true nature."

Stiles glanced at Scott, a little guilty, but looked back at Deaton. He still didn't know anything about Ghost's true nature. He could be a flipping troll or harpy for all he knew. So he kept his mouth shut.

Deaton either didn’t notice or pretended not to notice.

"If we can discover what this thing is, then we will know how to face it, whether with my methods," he looked at Scott, "or in a more straightforward way. Stiles, I can sense that this thing has upset the natural order, but I need to know exactly what's happened, if you want my help.”

“Crap. How did you know? Do you have some weird psychic incense or something?”

“No, Derek told me he couldn't reach you this morning, that you weren't at your home. And he knew you would avoid telling him in order to spare him the worry.”

Scott tried to sink in on himself and make himself look smaller.

“You were in on this!”

“I swear, I just texted Derek a couple of times to tell him that you were alright, I promise!”

“Great, that's just great,” Stiles said, “my friends are all plotting against me and I’m getting fucking teleported places by a fucking ghost like creature that we cant identify. That's fantastic!”

“You're what?” Deaton asked sharply, and Stiles realized what he'd let slip.

He sighed. And then made himself tell Deaton the bare minimum of details about what had happened that morning. About halfway through his exposition, Stiles broke down, leaned over the table, and just stared at it blankly.

He took a few deep breaths. He found a pen and started drawing the swooping design he thought of earlier on the back of his hand. Deaton had to know, he needed to know the full extend of the crap that was going on in order to help them.

He swallowed, and looked up at Deaton, finally meeting his eye.

“I can feel him almost constantly” he said seriously, admitting it to himself for the first time. He closed his eyes and felt the hint of fingers trailing across his neck before gritting his teeth and shoving it away, “and I don't know how to stop it.”

Deaton's eyes widened, and Stiles straightened up quickly. “Please, just don't tell Derek, not yet, give me some time.”

Deaton stared at him hard, but but glanced down and saw his hand.

“What is this?”

Stiles shrugged, tried to break out of Deaton's grip. “I don't know, I just doodled it.”

Deaton loosened his grip. “This, this is a symbol of communion with the dead. The druids use it to take counsel with their ancestors. Wash it off.”

Stiles nodded, rubbing the design off of his hand. “How did I...”

“You seem to be some sort of magnet for the metaphysical. He shook his head “For now, this can remain between us,” he said, “but this is bad news.” He shook his head, “it's worse than I thought, if you can constantly feel Ghost. That's what you called him, right? Why did you feel the need to give him a name, and call him him, instead of it?”

“Because I couldn’t just keep thinking of this dude as an it after I saw him and felt all this crap that's twisting around inside of him. I just...” Stiles hesitated, catching Scott's shocked, wide eyes as he shared a look with Deaton.

“What?” he looked between them.

Deaton placed his hand on the table, stepped up closer to Stiles, but wouldn't look up at him.

“Would you say that you feel a close, emotional connection with Ghost?” He asked.

Stiles rolled his eyes. “No, he's an asshole ghost creature who got screwed over when he was alive and now he's making my life miserable because of it. I can't stand it.”

Deaton nodded his head miniscule, to himself, and Stiles narrowed his eyes.

“Why did you ask me that?” Stiles asked irritably, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning away from him.

“Because,” Deaton said, looking up at him, face lined and tired and worried in a way it wasn't moments before, “if you feel an emotional closeness, as well as a physical closeness to Ghost at all times...” he paused for a moment, as if he were trying to find the right words. “That would be bad.”

Stiles swallowed. “How bad?”

Deaton sighed. As if his worst suspicions were confirmed, and he acted like he couldn't bring himself to look at Stiles.

“How long until we get the Spanish moss?” he asked instead.

Stiles fidgeted, “Around Tuesday,” he said, then paused for a second as Deaton continued to avoid looking at his eye.

“Seriously, what the hell's going on that you're not telling me? I told you all of my crap, now do me the same freaking honor.”  
Stiles' heart was pounding and he felt guilt pooling in his belly at yelling at someone who was for some weird reason, helping him. But he couldn’t take it.

“Ghost seems to have linked himself with you,” Deaton said, as if that explained everything.

Stiles waited. “Yeah, I kind of figured that out with the involuntary sleepover and all the creepiness.”

“This link gives Ghost a channel through which he can absorb more energy than would ever be possible on his own.”

“What kind of channel, and how do we shut it down?” Stiles asked, but he had a bad feeling.

“You are the channel,” Scott said quietly, “that's it, isn't it?” he asked, looking up at Deaton.

Deaton nodded. “And we can't destroy the channel without destroying you.”  
“Well, too bad,” Stiles said, heart beating irregularly again, “I'm not going to..going to...”

Deaton reached out to him, actually clasp his shoulder. “No one is expecting you to...”

“Which is good,” Scott said, amusement warming his tone, “because Derek would be sooo...”

The door to the clinic swung open and Stiles could feel from the prickly energy filling the building, before Derek even walked into sight in the back, that it was him. He looked tense, stiff, and angry, but his voice was soft when he spoke to Stiles.

"Why didn't you call me?" he asked. And yeah, the soft, worried tone made it so, so much worse.

Scott stepped up closer to Stiles, and Stiles appreciated the show of support. He made himself look Derek in the eye and told him.

"I didn't want you to worry," he said, and then before Derek could break in, "I know you would have flipped out. You would have gotten angry at this thing and gone all growly face and then you would have tried to attack it and then got angrier because it wouldn't do any good."

Derek rolled his eyes, “Stiles, you need to call your dad. I might have talked to him when I thought you were missing.”

Stiles pursed his lips. “I will freak out about that later, can we just get back on topic for now?”

Derek opened his mouth again, but that time Deaton interrupted him.

  
  


"He's right," he said, rummaging in his chest and pulling out a few different things, a bottle filled with pale brown powder, something green and fuzzy with deep red mixed in with it, and an almost empty Ziploc of pink wood chips, and another of roots, and one of rich green leaves.

"Wormwood, Dittany of Crete, cedar, and coltsfoot," he said, studying them on the table, brow furrowed as he thought.

Derek raised his brows at Stiles, as if to ask what the hell that was all about, but Stiles shrugged, and turned to Scott, who was watching Deaton as he grabbed a metal bowl out of his chest and mixed all but the last two up together with his hand, using the last of the cedar.

He studied the mix for a long moment before one side of his lips curled up in satisfaction at what he saw, and then he looked up at them.

"Given recent events," he looked at Stiles pointedly, "I have come up with another plan. If you are willing to take the risk, I think we can force Ghost to reveal himself."

"Ghost?" Derek furrowed his brow, "Why are you calling the thing that?"

"Stiles named him," Scott supplied helpfully, and Stiles glared at him until Derek looked his way and he smiled innocently.

"He had to have a name, right?" he said, leaning back against the table and almost tipping over Deaton's mixture before it was pulled out of harm's way.

Deaton sighed and started shuffling things around in his chest.

"This is going to be dangerous, isn't it?" Derek said, a roughness to his voice that made it a little deeper, more foreboding, than usual.

Deaton's hands stilled and he looked up.

"Yes," he said, "but if we do not make a move, Stiles' incidents could continue to worsen, which is also dangerous."

"So I'm screwed no matter what we do, and not in the fun way," Stiles muttered without thinking.

He saw Derek's shoulders tense up, and he rubbed a hand over his mouth before turning his back and walking out of the clinic.

Stiles felt a small sachet with a long drawstring slipped into his hands as he stared out after Derek. He turned to see Deaton giving him an intense look.

"It's feverfew, bay, Balm of Gilead, boldo leaf, and ginger root," he said quickly, "research their properties if you do not trust my word. But It was made to protect you."

Stiles thought he smelled a faint trace of honeysuckle from the pack, but it must have been his imagination; Deaton didn't mention it being in there. He nodded, said a quiet word of thanks, and slipped it around his neck before following Derek outside to calm him down. Why couldn't he keep his big mouth shut and remember that he wasn't the only one having issues with all of this crap?

  
  


The sun was beaming down brightly and Stiles was sweating, but only partly because of the heat. He had gone outside to meet Derek and, instead of finding him volatile with anger, he had found him sitting on the curb out facing the road, with the parking lot and a few passing vehicles spread out in front of him. But he was staring down at his hands, empty, and shaking a little.

Stiles sat down next to him and nudged him playfully in the side. Derek looked at him, but couldn't bring himself to meet his eyes.

"What's the point of this," he said, claws sliding out of his finger tips, "if I can't use it to help, to defeat all the evil things in the world," he finally managed to look up at Stiles, "to save you."

Part of Stiles felt his hear rip and tear a little, another part felt affection, alright love, welling up within him, but another part, by far the biggest, and loudest, got really, really angry.

"Save me? You think it's your job to save me?" he shoved at Derek and there was nothing playful about it. "I made the choice to go into that inn, so this, all of it, is on my head, and if we can't figure out how to fix it, it's all my fault, alright?" Stiles felt that rage, that he thought was directed at Derek, boiling around into self loathing and guilt. Of course, it had been his fault, he knew that, so he was getting what he deserved here.

But he couldn't let Derek know how hopeless he felt, how much trouble he'd gotten himself into this time.

"Look," he grabbed Derek by the bicep, got momentarily distracted, and then continued when Derek cleared his throat and gave him a pointed look. "Look," he repeated, "It's not your job to save me. I need to figure out how to fix this and yeah, ill need some help, but Deaton has a plan, a way to make Gh— to make this thing show us what it really is. And we have to take it. It's either do that or we sit around and wait for it to screw with me, and with Erica, and Boyd, until Tuesday, when we'll get the other stuff we need for Deaton's other spell."

He waited for a minute to let Derek stew, to let him mull that over in his mind for a while. "Or, you know, we could sit around and do nothing and see how long I can go without sleep." He paused again, gauging Derek's reaction and noting how he was starting to sag against him. "But you know what happens when I have coffee, so I give it three hours, and then I'll have you, Scott, all the wolves, and maybe even Allison driven completely off the wall batshit crazy. And I'm starting to feel sleepy already so maybe I should go get some coffee and..."

Stiles started to stand up, but Derek caught him by the arm.

"I know what you're doing," he said sharply. Stiles froze.

Derek tugged on his arm, harder than Stiles expected, and tipped him over, pulling him clumsily, because with Stiles most things happened clumsily, into his lap. He slid his arms around Stiles' waist, and tilted his head at him, eyes soft, but with a crease of worry still across his brow.

"You know you don't have to do this, right?" he asked, sliding his hands up Stiles' sides, then around to his back in a very distracting way.

Stiles wrapped his arms around Derek's neck, partly because he wanted to slide closer, but also because he felt off balance and awkward.

He leaned in, paused as Derek lifted one hand and tilted his chin up. He closed his eyes with a sigh as Derek's lips pressed over his, and for one moment, a brief, unending stream of seconds, he forgot.

He forgot about Ghost, about the inn, about how exhausted and trembling his body already felt. But then he felt the absence of Derek's lips and his eyes snapped open, in time to see Scott trotting around and seeing them, and stopping dead, one hand going to the back of his neck.

"So, uh, you two are dating now, I take it." Scott turned away, but the quickly back, "I can't believe you two! I knew it was weird how you got all close so fast, but not, I said to myself, if there was anything going on there, they would tell me." He frowned, disappointed, at Stiles.

Who scrabbled to get off of Derek's lap and wound up landing hard on his ass in the parking lot.

"I thought I deserved that much," Scott said, turning around, "I guess not."

Derek stood with a sigh and offered Stiles a hand up.

"Put out one fire and start another," Stiles muttered, "my life is officially a soap opera. And not even an original one. It's all full of cliches and tropes and irritating, temperamental actors who get mad at me all the time."

Derek gave him a judgmental look and dropped his hand, turning his back and following Scott.

Leaving Stiles sitting on the asphalt in what he hoped was a puddle of water of what he hoped was not urine.

He sighed.

"I guess I deserved that."

  
  


  
  


  
  


The sun was beaming down on Stiles, but that was only part of the reason why he was sweating. They were back at the inn, surrounded by the scent of charred wood and the occasional whiff of honeysuckle that kept distracting him.

'They' referred to Lydia, Derek, Scott, and Deaton. Stiles called Lydia because she was smart, and might have a feeling about what they were about to do or she might think of something to keep them from having to do it at all, if they were lucky.

But currently she was standing with her arms crossed next to Deaton, who was speaking to her quietly, as Stiles stood near the center of the inn, right in front of the staircase, feeling very exposed in a looping Celtic know made with black chalk or charcoal or something, with a candle right in front of him, waiting to be lit. He could feel the skepticism emanating from her in waves.

Derek was standing as close as he could get without smudging the lines, and it was a little bit of a reassurance to Stiles, as was Scott, still looking irritated at him, but trying to put it on the back burner for the time being.

Lydia nodded and took a handful of herbs from Deaton, and Stiles' brows shot up. He guesses she was going to be participating. Oddly enough, it was reassuring. If there was a major chance that the ritual could kill him, then he didn't think Lydia would take part in it. At least, he hoped she wouldn't.

But that didn't stop his heart from hammering as Deaton delicately stepped over the knots and loops around him and lit the candle before quickly stepping back out, setting another fire in a small metal bowl a few feet away.

Stiles idly wondered if it was a good idea to use a fire ritual within a place with such a bad history with fire, but Deaton was chanting over the bowl, dropping a honeycomb looking root thing into it, and then motioning to Lydia, who started walking a loop around Stiles, dusting what he recognized as sage, and something else [protective herb], around him.

She gave him a nervous look, but quickly focused on her task.

Scott and Derek stood back from the scene with matching looks of confusion and [word that means they don’t believe it's going to work] on their faces as Deaton straightened back up, followed Lydia's path, and smudged smoke over Stiles and into the knotted design until Stiles felt hot and sweaty and embarrassed and like he was choking on smoke.

He let his shoulders sag and was about to give up and tell them to stop, that it wasn't going to work, when he noticed a tension in the air, something that had been slowly building, as if Deaton had been pulling energy from the earth beneath, the air around, and the flames around them.

Deaton's forehead was beaded with sweat and Stiles had never seen him so fixated and serious and that was frightening but he just tried to take calm deep breaths, even though the air was getting electric and hot and was starting to make his throat tingle and the hair stand up ion the back of his neck.

Lydia was feeling it too, Stiles noticed, as she dropped the remainder of her herbs, closing the circle, and backed away, rubbing at the goosebumps on her arms and backing away to the leaning wall about as far away from them as was possible without leaving the inn.

Stiles felt really reassured by that, until he saw Deaton pull out a normal sharpie from his pocket, run it through the flames of his little fire, and then jab it through the invisible wall of energy surrounding Stiles.

Stiles could practically hear the wall being punctured, and then feel it sealing up around Deaton's arm as he reached out and took his hand, drawing a simple, three looped Celtic knot on the back of it, before quickly stepping back out of the wall, the invasion sealing behind him as if it had never been.

Then it struck Stiles that he could feel the energy surrounding him, in the air, and not just that. He looked down at the candle in front of his feet and reached out a hand. The flame jumped up, and Stiles quickly dropped his hand.

"Oops."

"Don't," Deaton said, a little breathless, "don't do that."

Stiles tried to stand still as the energy continued to build until Stiles felt he couldn't take it anymore, and then Deaton stopped his pacing, held his bowl of flame out in one hand, and sprinkled a deep leafy herb smelling of spice and honeysuckle over the flames.

For a long moment, nothing happened. But Stiles refused to let his guard down. And he was rewarded for that when the energy that had been growing and rolling and boiling around him seemed to stop noticing the barrier that was his skin.

All of it, every prickly, static charged ion of energy that the ritual had cultivated flowed into him, knocking the air out of his lungs, choking him, making him fall to his knees. He absently noticed Derek rushing to his aide, but Deaton and Scott both had to hold him back.

Stiles was glad that they did because he had a feeling that if the seal was broken, either the inn, or his body, would explode with the force of it.

He felt an electric surge of energy start flowing through him from the ground, like a sharp, violent electric current. He remembered reading something about St Elmo's fire, and then he couldn't think at all. 

He knew that he screamed, but it was distant. Very distant. As he felt the presence of the being, huge hulking, mind meltingly strong and terrifying, loomed over him.

He could see it in his mind's eye, though his true vision was starting to go dark.

It was the dragon. With Scales made of burning embers and obsidian, with molten lava flowing beneath that cracking core and smoke rising off of him in tenuous columns that made the air smell acrid and sharp, unlike the cloying woodiness of the herbs he had been inhaling.

Stiles fought against that power, though, even as he felt his body slipping, trying to give in to those currents flowing through him. But his mind rebelled. He didn't shove the energy down, trying to fight the flow. No, what he did was send it out. He imagined it flowing out of his head, out of his limbs. He saw the white-hot lightning flowing back through the earth from his feet. He saw it striking out from his hands into the air and dissipating like smoke, and spewing forth from his crown into the aether.

Stiles tried to remember why they were there, what they were doing. He hesitantly widened out his focus away from himself and reached into the inn itself, trying to find whatever was hiding there.

He felt Ghost's strong, steady, familiar presence at the forefront, but with effort, and a lot of resistance from Ghost, who was raging at him for ignoring him, he managed to get past his block.

The place was working alive with feelings and energy and constant repetitions of things long past. What he felt strongest was the fire, the fear and the pain, the heat. But it was just a memory and he tried to push past it.

Ghost went after him again, but with all of his excess energy, Stiles just nudged him to the side gently, and continued his mental search.

Underneath the broken roof, he felt something broken and scared, and it shrank away from him like a wounded animal. Stiles swallowed. He knew that wasn't an animal. And it had a hint of familiarity to it.

But as he approached, it grew more and more agitated, until Stiles expected its heart would have burst if it were still living. So he eased away, feeling strange flashes of emotions, a strong, guttural connection with the landing where Boyd and Erica had experienced their ordeal, but then Ghost was shoving him away, and his energy was weakening as it flowed back to its rightful place, out and away.

He felt a few other beings, and got the sense of anger and fear from multiple angles, but they were hiding from his eyes, and his main purpose wasn't to bother them.

He opened his eyes and looked at Derek, but was relieved to see that Derek wasn't wracked with pain or doubled over with pain and tears. He didn't feel any of it. Stiles was glad of that, so glad. Because if those beings hiding from him were his family, like he thought, he didn’t want Derek to know how badly they felt.

His vision started to clear, and Stiles was trembling. He could barely stand, but the energy was still keeping him rooted to the spot. His eyes found Lydia first, expecting her to look concerned, but she didn't. She looked terrified, and she wasn't looking at him.

She was looking somewhere a few yards above his head and behind him.

That was when he noticed that she was standing in bright sunlight, while Derek and Scott and Deaton were in dim shade in front of him.

"Shadow," he breathed, surprised he could speak, "it's a shadow."

The last thing in the world Stiles wanted to do was turn around. So he turned around and saw the giant beast that was looming behind him.

It was every bit as terrible and terrifying as he had imagined.

The dragon was like molten flame wrapped in a cracking case of shining stone. Its eyes were razor sharp and strikingly intelligent as it looked down at Stiles.

That muzzle, with its razor teeth jutting out of lower lips, was an unreadable mask, but Stiles knew that it knew him. But he had a feeling that he wouldn't be going on any dragon rides. He could practically feel the heat the creature was putting off.

It got stronger as the thing leaned its head down closer, stretching out its long neck with a rhythmic clicking of scales. It sniffed at Stiles, and a low rumble emanated from its chest, along with the smell of acrid smoke mixed with a familiar woodsy sweetness.

It snorted, and Stiles' hair puffed out from his forehead.

Stiles panicked. He threw up and arm, somehow sending out an arc, breaking the Celtic design on the ground, and then he ran, grabbing Lydia, and motioning for the others to run out in front of them.

Stiles unceremoniously shoved Lydia out the door, but paused himself as he felt a hand that wasn't there gripping his arm, holding him tight.

He couldn't see Ghost visibly, but in his mind's eye he was frantic, eyes wide and his breathing heavy. He was confused, frightened of the dragon, but then he got a note of comprehension.

“Damiana,” Ghost breathed, his voice rough around the edges, the word breathing into Stiles ear in a way that sent chills down his spine.

But then Stiles remembered the giant dragon hovering over them, blotting out the sunlight, and he broke away and ran. Ghost was trying to trap him. It was trying to get him killed!

He ran, his feet flying faster than ever before, as he raced to catch up with the others. Ghost had shown his true colors, alright. He was trying to get Stiles eaten alive by a fucking dragon. They knew what he was now, he was a monster. Or a monster's keeper or...

Against his better judgment, Stiles slowed his frantic pace to a trot as he reached the parking lot behind the inn, where the others were hovering, catching their breath, instead of running for their lives.

That wasn't right.

Stiles stopped a few feet away from them and looked back around. The giant beast was still there, but it was fading. The sun was shining through it and burning it away like morning fog until it shook its massive head, buffeted its wings soundlessly, and disappeared completely.

Still looking up at the empty space the beast had just occupied, Stiles stumbled over to the others.

"It wasn't real," he said, but it was a question, "it can't be." He finally turned to Deaton and met his eyes.

"There's no such thing as dragons! Right?" he asked desperately, barely noticing when Derek took him by the arm. "RIGHT?"

But Deaton was silent and it made Stiles fear for the worst. What if it was still there. What if that was ghost's true form, or his damn pet or something, and now it was a giant invisible dragon that could destroy the countryside.

Deaton pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut as he thought hard. But Lydia was staring levelly at the sky where the dragon had disappeared, her eyes wide and considering.

"I don't think so," Lydia said, and Deaton looked up sharply, eying her quizzically.

"How could you possibly know that?" he asked roughly, equal parts suspicious and impressed.

"If there was a giant demon thing that could destroy us that just appeared out of nowhere because we made it show itself, don't you think it would have done more than just stand there, if it was capable?" She asked, "we would be dead and barbecued right now if that were the case."

Stiles felt Derek's hand on his arm tighten, and he stepped back, pressing close to him, trying to reassure without missing a word.

"It is possible for such beasts to exist," Deaton said warningly, "I've never seen one of that scale before, or one that took on such a tried and cliche guise...but demons are capable of amazing things." Quickly, he added, "horrifying things."

Lydia shrugged, "If you say so. but that wasn't a real giant monster." When everyone eyed her, she sighed and rolled her eyes, as if it were obvious. "The first law of thermodynamics." She said, as if that explained everything.

Stiles waited twenty seconds.

"Explain, please," he said in a very reasonable tone.

"It means that the change in the internal energy

of a closed system is equal to the amount of heat supplied to the system, minus the amount of work derived from the system," she said, "In this case, Stiles, you and Ghost somehow managed to form at least a temporary closed system."

Stiles held up a hand. "No, no, there was no..." He interlocked his hands together, not even sure what he was saying, "there was no closing between me and Ghost!" He said, and he felt Derek tense behind him.

Well, that backfired, and Lydia was giving him the stink eye too so he was a failure all around.

"Trust me," She said, "I know what I'm talking about. When two systems, you and Ghost, open to each other for transfer of matter and energy, then the sum of their internal energies does not change." She waited.

Deaton was the first to get it.

"The ritual tapped into the natural energies of the earth and the elements," he said, giving Lydia a rare smile, "and as that energy was expelled, Ghost must have took a temporary hold on it, using it to his advantage. He could have tapped into your subconscious and created the dragon as a Tulpa with all of the energy."

"Okay," Stiles said, "I understood everything until she," he pointed to Lydia, "started talking."

"You and Ghost formed a closed circuit after you got dosed with spiritual or magical energy from the earth itself," Derek said, his tone warm with jealousy on the words 'closed circuit', probably because Stiles had made a big deal about it. He took a breath and continued. "As that energy tried to regain its natural state, escaping into the environment," he glanced at Lydia and Deaton, who gave identical creepy nods, "Ghost somehow managed to focus that energy into something meant to frighten us away from the Inn."

"Wait," Scott said, frowning, "how do you know that last part?"

Derek didn't say anything, he just stepped up beside Stiles and tugged down the sleeve of his shirt, showing a faded, but detailed outline of a Dragon with its wings curling around his forearm.

"I know what his focus was," Derek said sharply, anger in the sharp clipped tone of his words.

Stiles felt his face flush in shame. Again, it was his fault.

"It's not your fault," Scott said quickly, reading his face better than a book. "You were as scared of that thing as the rest of us; he did this by using you. It's that fucking ghost bastard's fault."

Stiles was shocked by the anger in Scott's tone, and he hadn't heard him curse like that before. Well, not outside of stubbed toes and losing lottery tickets. Which had been purchased very legally, of course.

"But why use the energy to create something to scare us?" Stiles asked, trying to push past his self loathing for a minute. "If he had that kind of muscle at the time, he could have done a lot of damage."

But the answer dawned on him even as the others remained silent.

"He doesn't want to hurt us," he said, knowing it for certain the moment he said it, "he was just trying to get us out." He thought back to the way the dragon was standing, looming over him, the way it had leaned back, away from him, extending its neck to get a closer look.

Something clicked into place in his mind.

"It was protecting something," he said, with certainty, "there's something in there that Ghost doesn't want us to find."

After that, they decided to wait for bigger ammunition before going back into the inn. Or, Deaton decided it for them and they agreed.

"Do NOT go to the inn. Not until we get the Spanish moss," he said, absently turning one of those honeycomb looking roots over in his fingers, until he noticed Stiles watching and pocketed it.

"Why is Spanish moss so important?" Scott asked, since the rest of them were too exhausted to care at that point.

"It's the binder," Deaton said, "There aren't many who know its true properties, but it allows otherwise volatile items to blend together harmoniously, otherwise we'd have a metaphysical mess on our hands. Or possibly we could open a pit in the world through which the stuff of nightmares could return to the earth."

After that, they were willing to trust Deaton's word, and wanted as far from the inn as possible.

But Stiles remembered something, a word whispered in his ear, so he pulled Deaton to the side, despite Derek still being in earshot, and asked quietly, futilely.

"Do you know anything a Damiana?" he asked quietly, "I just...I think Ghost was trying to tell me something," he glanced at Derek who was pretending not to listen.

Deaton's face spasmed reflexively, and Stiles was frightened of him for a moment, but then he was just Deaton again, and he shrugged. "I'm not sure," he said coolly, "it might be the name of an old lover of your new friend." He paused for a moment, "Ghost might connect you with her, and therefore pay you such attention," he said, before quickly excusing himself.

Stiles stared after him, eyes narrowed. He was definitely going to look up Damiana, he didn't care what Deaton said.

  
  


The next day at school was hellish. Stiles had even more trouble than normal concentrating, and instead he focused on his drawing, in the margins of his scrawled notes or squiggly lines where he was pretending to take notes he drew the inn, the design of the Celtic knot on the floor, recreating the ritual in his mind so he could study it and figure out what exactly happened, if he could, so he could task to Lydia, and maybe Deaton, about it later. But he wasn't sure if he trusted Deaton. There had been something off about him that evening, after the ritual, while they were packing up and leaving on their own ways.

And Damiana, turns out, was an aphrodisiac, and when he looked up the mystical side of things, it was said that it could be used to bring back a straying lover. What the hell was that about?

He tried not to think about it, but he felt jittery and shaky, as if he had been the one with the energy of the earth flowing through him, instead of Stiles. Or maybe it was just Stiles projecting his own feelings upon Deaton, since none of the others seemed to notice anything off. Not even the wolves.

He kept recreating the scene in his mind, trying to work it from different angles, but it didn't click into place until he tried an aerial view. The ritual place had been made in the center of the main room, right in front of the staircase, and the dragon had appeared back and to the side of the stairs, right in front of a darkened area to the right of the staircase, shaded and shadowed by the falling roof. They had all been too worried about the roof falling on then to explore that area for clues.

Yet that was where the dragon guarded. That was, of all the things that could have happened, Ghost created a giant, protective beast to hide that one spot from their site.

He hit himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand. "Duh!" And then drew a big circle around the spot. They needed to figure out what the Dragon had been protecting.

At that moment he had forgotten he was in math class, until the teacher called on him to answer a question, then stepped over to see his work.

He tilted his head, studying the diagram over Stiles' shoulder, then shrugged and kept walking.

"I'm not even going to ask," he said in a tired, [apathetic or word that means done with everything] tone.

Most of his classes passed in a similar fashion as he shared his news with Scott, and then got reminded that they couldn't go back until they got the stuff Deaton needed.

Stiles was sorely tempted, right after school, to make the quick drive over and investigate, but reminded himself of what happened the last time, and headed home instead with a belabored sigh.

Which was a good thing since his dad was studying a big box with his name plastered on the side in looping letters, turning it over in his hands.

"What the hell is this?" he asked, when he saw Stiles rushing inside.

"Uh, uh, something for a school project," Stiles fumbled quickly, making a speedy ninja move and slipping the box out of his dad's hands and rushing back to the door.

"It smells green!" his dad called after him.

"It's not drugs, I swear!" Stiles called back to his dad, "I'll be back later. Very important! School! Project!"

“Stiles! Come back here! Your boyfriend stopped by yesterday! He looked worried.”

Stiles froze and turned back. “He _told you_ about us?”

The sheriff nodded. “No, but you just did, so how long has this been going on?”

Stiles groaned. “Yeah, we're kind of going out. Can we please, please talk about this later? I really have to go.”

His dad studied him for a minute. “Yeah, go ahead, but we're talking about this when you get home!" he called after him, and Stiles took that as permission, tossing the box of Spanish moss into the jeep and scrambling inside, pulling out his cell phone as he started up the jeep.

  
  


Around twenty minutes later, they, Deaton, Stiles, Derek, Scott, and Lydia, were back at the inn. All of them were tense and worried, which was reasonable considering the giant beast of fire and rock that had formed in front of them last time.

Stiles started towards the darkening spot where he had a feeling something was hiding, but Deaton stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"We need to do this immediately," he said, "before the sun sets."

Stiles made reachy arms toward the stairs and the mystery there, but Deaton's eyes didn't leave his face, and he let them flop back to his sides.

"Fine," he grumbled, "if me not knowing what that is makes me die, I'm getting the robots to take you out first."

Deaton tilted his head, brow furrowed. "Alright," he said simply, and pulled out his big weird box of plants and junk, and Stiles sighed and pulled a handful of the long stringy Spanish moss out of his pocket.

Deaton didn't start a fire with this one, or build a giant diagram on the floor.

All he did was put the moss in that same big, metallic bowl, along with [find protective herbs and banishment herbs and connection herbs and stones and stuff]. He mixed all of the ingredients together with a finger, once twice, and then he stepped back.

"Is that it?" Stiles asked, crossing his arms.

"Shh!"

But Stiles had already started to feel a tension twisting into the air. It wasn't like before. He wasn't in a loop or separated from the others, but he knew that he was the only one that could feel that energy building, growing stronger, and tightening the muscles in his neck.

He closed his eyes and felt breath puffing out on his neck, but it wasn't Ghost's normal languid, teasing touch. It was angry, moving closer to him in order to gain strength or to use him to keep from lashing out, Stiles wasn't sure. Ghost was pissed off at Deaton, very pissed. It made Stiles worry about Deaton's motives.

But Ghost was there, sticking close to him, using him as some sort of anchor. Chills rushed down Stiles' spine as he heard a growl rumbling in his ear. He didn't so much hear it as feel the vibrations against the [word that means ear hair stuff] of his ear.

Stiles blinked a few times, studying Deaton, with that presence at his side, and he knew that Ghost didn't like him. Didn't trust him.

Curious, Stiles stepped back, enveloping himself further in Ghost's energy, reaching out with his mind, trying to figure out why.

"Why isn't anything happening?" Scott asked, and Stiles was jerked back to reality, his attention shifting away from ghost.

Stiles felt his face was flushed, and he knew his breathing was starting to get erratic. Ghost had grabbed him by the arm when he meant to move away, and that was all that he needed. All of that anger, the rage and the distrust and the fear, it was all coursing through him like the emotions were his own.

He wanted to attack Deaton To stop the ritual. He didn't know if ghost had a good reason. He didn't know if he should trust Scott's adviser, or the mystical asshole at his shoulder.

 

And also the desire to hide. To keep it from happening again. The desire to stop it all. He was so tire, he was just so tired and he had to stop it., Somehow. If he could just get Stiles to step away, to leave this place, to learn from him, to trust him, then he could get him and all the others, especially that meddling druid, to go away, and then it would all be over.

Stiles shivered, his knees giving out under him, and Derek rushed to him, helping keep him upright. Stiles felt a trill of mild annoyance from Ghost at that, but he tolerated it.

He closed his eyes, just for a second, but then fear and despair overwhelmed him and his eyes snapped back open to see Deaton lighting one small leaf aflame, and dropping it gently into the metallic bowl.

It had a sweet, gently scent to it, but he was almost in tears of frustration and rage that it was too late there was nothing he could do. The flames leap as the oils caught flame and the stones blackened.

Stiles saw the smoke curling in strange designs as the green moss refused to ignite, and just smoked, slowly burning down, from over his own shoulder, completely ignoring Derek's existence.

Stiles shook his head and realized he was seeing through Ghost's eyes. If he could see through Ghost's eyes, then maybe he could find that thing, whatever it was he was trying to hide.

Ghost's eyes jerked away from the flames ans smoke, to the dark little alcove, and his sharper eyes took in the glint of metal or glass in the dying light of the sun.

Stiles tried to break free of Ghost's mind, but just managed to get the sense of his own body back as he ran to the alcove, reaching out into the darkness blindly to grab...

A cell phone.

A modern cell phone, covered in ash with a broken screen and a red cover. It was aged and broken and fire-blackened, with the metal parts rusted dark.

Stile stayed on his knees, pulling his new phone out of his pocket.

It was shiny and new, with still with the screen cover, and the cool red case he liked so much. He turned the old one over, and dropped them both.

His heart was hammering out of his chest, and all he was doing was looking at two phones.

But they were the same phone.

He could tell by the little doodle of the Celtic knot on the lower right side of the red cover.

On his phone, it was fresh and still a little wet, from when he'd drawn it at school, earlier that day.

On the other one, it was twisted and a little melted, but still clearly the same thing.

"Oh my god," Stiles breathed, "oh my god."

On the other one, it was twisted and a little melted, but still clearly the same thing.

"Oh my god," Stiles breathed, "oh my god."

But then Deaton was suddenly there. He scooped up the phone, but Stile felt his body pulled upright as he ran clumsily after Deaton without thinking of doing it, but Deaton dropped the melted and burned phone into his little fire and turned back to stare at Stiles, a sneer curling his lips, his brows down and expression dark, unreadable. Maybe regretful, even sad.

Flames shot high into the air, like a geyser of fire, but Deaton didn't jump, he didn't even wince. He just stared. He stared as the flames spread to the wall, to the notch of roof, as the building was set aflame anew.

And Stiles felt Ghost, stronger than ever, as an anger coiled and twisted around his insides, consuming them both. All he wanted was to stop it. That was all.

And that bastard had ruined it. He was sure he had been getting through to Stiles, breaking down his defenses, but it was all for nothing. He felt a fury unlike anything that had ever happened to him before.

He knew what to do. He stretched out his arms to his sides and pulled. It was like inhaling, but with his entire body, pulling in the fire, making it gutter and die down to a smolder, pulling in Scott and Derek's volatile energy as their fear rolled off of them, and the sweeter, human tang of Lydia as she tried to break free of Scott's grip on her, struggling crazily as she yelled something that Stiles couldn't hear over the electric roar of pure energy in his ears.

Stiles could feel Ghost looking out through his eyes, feeling the growing burn of the fire on his skin, and the pull grew stronger, and stronger, until he felt, more than heard, a wet rip, or a crack, a cold glass filled with hot liquid or ice covered in coffee, sharp and cold and sudden.

And then Ghost was afraid, as he pulled on more energy, but in that spot of the cracking sound, he found nothing. It was blankness, pure nothing. But he couldn't stop pulling, he didn't know how to he was out of control he didn't know what to do, but Lydia was screeching, and Stiles broke through, turning to see her face alight with fear as Scott struggled to hold her back, and he still didn't understand.

He still didn't understand when the crack started growing colder, and spreading, and pulling back against Ghost, trying to consume them both. He tried to dig his heels into the ground, to stay back from the stairs, but his feel moved onwards, of their own volition, even as Ghost screamed at him to stop, beyond anger, beyond fear, wrapped up in pure, freezing terror.

"Stiles! Stop!" Derek's voice cut through the ice, for a moment, and Stiles turned around to see him, at the bottom of the stairs, rushing up. Stiles wondered where he was, and how he got there. And then noticed that he was poised to step off of the ledge, into the gaping hole he could feel before him, right off of the dais.

"It's a rent in the fabric of the world, Derek, stay away from it!" Lydia cried.

"I hadn't thought of that, Lydia, thanks!" Derek yelled back at her as he tackled Stiles, sending him into the nook that he knew held the most damaged and fearful of the beings in the inn.

He reached out with his mind and touched it, a mere brush of mental fingertips. He felt its feelings again, the fear, the sickness of the mind, the pain, but he also saw it, a young, angular face with wide eyes, and he was trembling.

Stiles reached out again when it shrank from him, but the sudden hiss of quenched flames sent the being running, hiding again. He could smell the wet ash and it was like the air was suddenly twenty degrees cooler, even with Derek holding him, shaking him by the shoulders.

"Stiles! What's wrong? Are you okay?"

What? Of course he was okay. Stiles realized that tears were streaking his cheeks, and tried to blink them away, focusing on how the hole, the rent, seemed to be sealing itself as Ghost's energy dissipated.

But Ghost was still petrified, he still felt pulled to the rent, and Stiles felt him repress a trill of disappointment.

He stumbled unsteadily back down the steps with Derek, to check on the others. But Ghost didn't fade. He was a constant presence in his mind. As was the young, tortured face he had recognized from above.

  
  


Stiles dropped to the floor with Lydia as Deaton and the wolves fought down the fire that was already dying, apparently goaded only by the ritual, which Deaton had abruptly stopped.

"Your weird ghost buddy took so much power into himself that he tore the fabric of space time," she said waspishly, "though I have no idea how."

"I think I might," Stiles said, even though Ghost was giving him the mental stink eye, he told her about the phone.

And then he hesitated.

"There's more to it than that," he said slowly, grimacing as Scott tumbled off of the falling roof as he tried to stop the fire. And then jumped up with a cheerful "I'm okay!" before going back to it.

Lydia waited. "There are others here," he said quietly, "beings other than Ghost."

Lydia raised her brows. "Well, that makes sense since there were so many..."

"No, not them," Stiles said quickly. "I mean, I felt them, but they're not really conscious of what's happening. It's like an imprint."

He took a steadying breath, planning on telling her what he thought, but the crooked door to the inn was shoved off of its hinges as Erica strode inside, face twisted into a snarl and trembling with anger. Hot, prickly anger that made Ghost shrink away, despite his snide sense of distaste.

The anger pushed a charge into the air, and still raw, ghost reflexively started pulling it in, in moments, even as Boyd ran in behind Erica and tried to take her by the arms as she broke away, and stalked towards him.

The fire blazed up again, and the crack reestablished itself. Stiles felt his link with Ghost strengthening by the second as he pulled in the energy to defeat Erica, or whatever was possessing her, his fear overcoming his mind, so he didn't understand what he was doing.

The fire started roaring in his ears, even as the electric currents twisted and whirled around inside of Stiles. He knew that ghost was getting stronger, too strong. And soon he would consume him for the chance to defeat the unknown evil using Erica.

Ghost was very conscious of the hole, and that it would end everything, he was terrified of it. Ghost wanted far, far away from that hole. Stiles could feel it getting bigger, pulling not just at them, but at Erica, at everyone. If he didn't do something...

"Damn it!" Deaton cried out in true fear, "The ritual's done! I stopped it!" He was running towards Stiles, in the center of the main room.

"I know," Stiles said calmly, motioning for him not to get too close, "Ghost is doing it. He's draining energy from the environment. I can feel it." He closed his eyes as another dizzying wave overcame him, as Scott tried to help Boyd hold Erica back while she snarled and snapped. stiles reaches out to Erica, and felt the anger was an aspect of the spirit with her. like ghost is with him. but he couldn't tell what it was.

  
  


Derek was suddenly there with a hand on his arm, anchoring him for a moment. "How do we stop it?"

Then the rip opened wider than it had before, and Derek froze as distant screams of fear and pain echoed through the darkening hole, as the flames atop the roof whirled down, sucked through the hole.

Derek's expression was horrified, and broken, by the sound of screaming, and then Derek blinked it away, chin jutting stubbornly as he prepared to do whatever he could to help. those two expressions looked like two different people.

Stiles felt a similar mix of emotions when he heard them, too, not just empathy, but through his connection with Ghost.

Along with a nauseating, overpowering, sickening wrench of guilt. He knew in that moment that Ghost had started the fire. And he had just done it a second time.

"Eight fatalities. One unidentified, and two unaccounted for,” Stiles breathed, looking into Derek's horrified eyes, getting a flash of the horrified boy he saw upstairs, the guilt overwhelming Ghost, and the rage, the pain, rolling off of the beast possessing Erica.

And it all clicked together in a way that made his head spin.

"Splinters," he yelled, clutching at Derek, "they're splinters."

Derek gave him an incredulous look, then looked at Erica, trying to fight her way free of pack mates, and at Deaton, who was speaking [importantly] with Lydia as they tried to figure out how to fix the chaos.

"More important things on our plate right now if you didn't notice!" Derek snapped, looking at him like he was crazy.

But he wasn't.

Lydia's eyes go round with sudden understanding, but he didn't know how she could help at this point.

For once in his life Stiles knew he was completely sane.

"Ghost," he said, then repeated it louder, with force behind it, "Ghost!"

He got Ghost's attention, closed his eyes, and used his mind to feel him out. "It's you, isn't it? The rage beast within Erica is the dragon, your anger, your guilt for letting all of this happen, past and present, isn't it?"

Ghost shrank in on himself, reminding Stiles of the young, frightened boy he had met earlier, upstairs. His fear, his fucking innocence, fractured because he couldn't deal with what he had become. But Stiles could feel that fearful presence no longer upstairs, it was mingling with Ghost in front of him, twisting and coiling as they tried to sort their selves out into a single existence.

Stiles realized that he was pulling all aspects of Ghost's splintered personality together. The the last, the rage, he was frightened of, not only because Ghost and the fearful one were terrified of him, but because he was pulling strength from people and the environment even more strongly than Ghost, like a fucking metaphysical vacuum cleaner.

The young one and Ghost were still split like will o the wisps, but they were being of nearly pure energy, so they consumed energy. Stiles had a feeling that Ghost would reabsorb the young one simply given enough time.

And then maybe they would be strong enough to defeat the dragon.

Stiles locked eyes with Erica, and after a quick, wicked smile, her body went slack. And Stiles felt the young, fearful one jumping to Erica moments before he felt like he was hit by a train, toppling over backwards as Ghost was rent away from him, ripping his insides in a metaphysical way as Dragon flexed his wings, testing his size, and rolled his shoulders.

It was great, Stiles mused, that he gave the anger beast a shape that it liked.

Stiles felt the same wicked grin that had looked so frightening from Erica curl his own lips, but he was powerless to stop it. He felt the beast pulling on energy more strongly that Ghost was capable of doing, even at his best.

Stiles reached out for Ghost, but found only emptiness. He felt something cold and empty in the pit of his stomach. What if the beast had killed Ghost? If he could be killed. He was gone. Stiles couldn't see or sense him, and he wasn't with the young frightened one with Erica, who was unsteady on her feet, but now looking more confused and like herself that a homicidal maniac.

No, that was Stiles. He felt his body moving without his approval, as Dragon swaggered closer to Erica. He tried to stop himself, but there was no stopping. It wasn't like with ghost, who had reached out and nudged him into doing things, and could be shoved back, like two people inside a giant robot, no it was like Dragon had devoured him, became him. Stiles was shoving against smooth, seamless walls, and he couldn't break past them. He couldn't do anything. He couldn't protect his friends. He couldn't even warn them that something bad was about to happen.

Then Erica tensed, shot out a finger at him, her eyes wide and fearful. She didn't say anything, but Scott and Boyd got the point, stepping in front of her in a way that the real Erica would have ripped their balls off for doing.

Stiles could see Deaton doing something out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t move his head, and he could barely think past the whirling mass of energy that Dragon was consuming.

Derek gripped his arm again, fingernails digging in to the flesh.

"Stiles," he said, staring into his eyes, and Stiles hammered against the walls in his mind, roaring at the beast that had him trapped and helpless.

"Stiles, if you're in there, let me know you're okay." Derek's hands went up to cradle his face, and Stiles raged as Dragon leaned into the touch, leading to a relieved, pained curl in the center of Derek's brow, before he leaned in and headbutted him, making Stiles see stars and his vision go dark of a long moment. He was sure he had a cracked skull, but he couldn't even stumble or fall over the way he felt like he should because the energy was flowing through him, held in a tight rein by Dragon.

He could feel the ice cold blackness of the rip widening, getting closer to them, but Dragon ignored it, letting it grow as he fed on every living thing within reach. Including Derek's prone body, as he struggled to get up, the pain and betrayal in his eyes speaking volumes. Speaking volumes of 'did Stiles choose Ghost over me? Was the power too much for him, did he give in to temptation? Did he never really care about me in the first place?'

Stiles was trembling with anger, helpless, hopeless, and stuck in his own mind with no hope of escape as her had to just watch as the people he loved, and Deaton, watched on in horror and tried to figure out what to do.

Stiles heard a gasp from Derek's direction and hoped that he understood that Stiles wasn't in control of his own body, but no, he was looking up the stairs. Stiles looked that way, saw Derek racing up the stairs, though he was still lying on the ground. On the dais, Stiles stood, with one leg extended over the gap, his face horrifyingly slack, leaning forward on the now expanding rent, as Derek tackled him. Stiles watched as Derek hovered over him, and slapped him in the face. He didn't remember that.

"Hey!" he said, as shocked as Derek when the word actually came out of his mouth. "You slapped me!"

"You wouldn't answer me!" Derek snapped, rushing to his feet and taking both of his arms in his hands. "What's going on?"

Stiles felt Dragon beating at his unsteady defenses, unsure how he had broken past them, and spoke as quickly as he could.

"Possessed, Big Big Bad. Not Ghost. Kind of Ghost, but not really. Super strong get out of here. It's going to get me again." He already felt his hold on his body weakening, glancing back to see the vision of the past fading.

But then he felt an icy cold breeze, and the entire inn around them was pitch dark, with a sense of discomfort and loneliness sliding through it like a fog on a gentle breeze. He knew it was the past, long before he ever visited the inn or met Ghost, but then it was gone within the blink of an eye.

The shock had again shoved Dragon back down. Apparently that was the answer. Dragon roared within him, and Stiles shuddered, clenching at Derek's shirt as he almost fell.

And then Derek was holding him close, eyes squeezed closed, as if hiding from some great horror. But Stiles didn't see anything. But then he heard it. It was laughter, deep, feminine laughter of pure good humor. And then he heard the murmur of warm conversation and felt surrounded by happy people during a gathering of some kind.

"What is it?" he asked, tilting his head down to Derek's face, pressed to his shoulder.

"It was a party," Derek breathed against his shirt, refusing to look up, "I remember it. We always had gatherings, to bring in guests and just have some fun. It was a Halloween one, everyone was dressed up."

Derek shuddered as the murmur of conversation grew louder, and then slowly faded, leaving the inn cold and silent and dead.

Through a chink in his mental armor, Stiles felt Ghost's presence nearby, and his eyes widened when he looked around at Lydia, where she stood near Boyd, Scott, and Erica. She looked normal. She was scared, and her hair was crazy, and her eyes were wide, but...

“It's bleeding time and ghost is the anticoagulant!” She cried. Yep, that was still Lydia. But he knew that he felt Ghost...

Dragon found the weak spot and sprung through it, sending Stiles spiraling back into the prison of his own mind. At that point he was struck by what had to be done. The only way to get rid of Dragon was to send him back where he came from, back through that rip into the inn's past. But he was not in control any longer. Dragon was.

And he was currently toying creepily with Derek's hair. Stiles was going to kill this undead dude. Kill him deader than he already was.

But if he had sensed Ghost, then maybe they could communicate. And Stiles could see Erica grimacing and shoving Boyd and Scott aside, as if every movement was a fight. She started stalking towards him, nose curled up in anger. "You can't stop me you little shit," she snapped at the young one hiding inside her, trying to run away.

Stiles felt a rush of hope. He was useless, but Erica was fighting. And he knew that Ghost was out there somewhere nearby. He reached into that empty spot where ghost had been connected earlier, grasping at shadows, and he got something.

Boyd had been acting off...odd and twitchy, in a very familiar way..

"I have to get Dragon to the rip!" he yelled with all the power of his mind, desperate. And he saw Boyd put a hand to his head and wince. Stiles did a mental victory dance. "Boyd! I love you, man! I need your help. Get me to the top of the stairs!"

Boyd ran both hands over his head, but then looked up with wide eyes at Stiles.

"No idea how I'm doing this just go with it! Listen to the voice inside your head!"

"Derek!" Boyd called, and Derek jerked upright, as if he'd been lulled into a trance, blinking heavily. Maybe he had. Stiles let out a mental sigh of relief as he stepped back and spoke to Boyd, then threw him a sharp glance.

"Boyd, tell Derek to listen to you or I'll tell you that Derek likes being the little spoon." A pause. "Oops."

He saw Boyd raise a brow sharply, before schooling his expression and passing on the message.

Stiles got a very angry glare from Derek in response, but the wolves, with Erica leading, grabbed him and hauled him to the midway section of the steps, with Derek holding him close.

Erica grabbed him by the wrists as he felt Ghost slipping away from Boyd, nudging at his mind and trailing fingers down his spine in his delicately manipulative way, trying to find his way inside.

"Derek, Scott, back off!" he ordered through Boyd, getting another distrustful glare from Derek, but he complied.

Stiles could feel Dragon shoving against Erica as she wielded the fearful one as a weapon and tried to puncture his armor, her eyes so dark and angry they were almost red. Stiles felt like someone was hacking at his psyche with an ax, but her method finally worked, only for the little one to be consumed by Dragon like a fucking snack. Stiles felt his light go out and his rage went frozen and white hot at the same time.

His emotions connected with Ghost and the both fought, from both sides, at Dragon, as Erica fell back and caught herself on the railing, even as Dragon wielded his energy like a sword and sliced him apart, breaking his connection with Ghost, but in his rage, also weakening Dragon's connection with his body.

Not expecting to regain control so suddenly, Stiles almost fell backwards off of the steps, saved only by Erica's hand tangling in his shirt and hauling him back up.

But Stiles knew the only way to end Dragon, to stop him.

Boyd, somehow, knew it too. His eyes were wide, and his feet were on the bottom steps ahead of Derek.

"Don't do it!"

Lydia understood a moment later. “Stiles, no! You won't just die if that's what I think it is! You could cease to exist!”

Stiles' heart was hammering in his chest, and he felt sick.

“I have to,” he said brokenly. The rip was getting bigger, and Dragon's hold on him was getting stronger by the second.

With Dragon's overwhelming energy suffocating him, Stiles looked up at the dais where Erica and Boyd had acted so strangely before. Now he knew that Erica had been connected, in that moment, to Ghost and his alter egos, Fearful and Dragon.

He looked down at Boyd. But there had been another being there, someone else for Boyd to connect with. In the past. Stiles thought of his new phone, twisted and aged a decade. And it made sense. Knowing that it had already happened, in the past, that he still had at least one conversation before dying, that did not make it any easier.

As Dragon reared his ugly head and tried to cease control, Stiles pushed off of the steps and let himself fall backwards, Dragon's energy falling with him. He felt a moment of fear of hitting the ground, but he never made it that far. His connection with Dragon snapped as they fell into the darkness.

He fell. And fell. And fell. He fell until he didn't know which way was up and he couldn't remember anything at all except for falling.

And then he hit the ground with a grunt.

Stiles opened his eyes to see a curious, unfamiliar face staring down at him, lips curled up in a way the he, for some reason, found very annoying.


	2. The Beginning of the Paradox

## Paradox Wolf Vol. 2: The Beginning of the Paradox

  
  


Derek wasn't listening to reason. But that was okay because he understood that he was being unreasonable and he didn't give a damn some things were more important than risking his life, the possibility of his atoms dispersing violently throughout the cosmos. He assumed that Deaton meant that he would explode by that, but he just didn't want to say those words.

Still, Derek made sure there were a few fail safes in place, after eventually wearing Deaton down and making him agree to do whatever the hell he could to help Derek bring Stiles back.

Every time he closed his eyes he saw Stiles falling down off of the stairs, his eyes closed and face slack and almost peaceful as he just let himself fall backwards, disappearing into thin air a few feet from the floor.

It happened around an hour before and Derek had refused to leave the inn since. He almost killed Deaton. That was the first time he had ever lost control that badly, but thankfully part of him knew that Deaton was the only one who could help him, so he held back.

But after hearing:

"I may have coaxed Ghost into coming back for Stiles in a way that connected them, and by extension, Dragon, irrevocably. If i had know that the Dragon was an aspect of Ghost's being at the time, I would never have risked it!"

Derek had seen red, and thrown Deaton across the room, where he had crumpled, bruised but no serious injuries.

Scott had rushed to Deaton's side, and Derek turned away in disgust. But then:

"You toyed with him, you son of a bitch! He was my best friend! And you just killed him!" Scott let out an inhuman howl of rage, and Derek had to rush over to help Erica hold Scott back from ripping Deaton's throat out.

That put things in perspective for him. The only one who was calm and detached was Boyd. And he was still shaky, and shocked. But it gave Derek the insight that Boyd had a cool head under pressure and he would be the best to take care of the pack while he was gone.

"Boyd," Derek said, calling him over, "you know what I'm going to do, and I know you won’t try to talk me out of it. But I need a favor." He paused, wishing Isaac was there, instead of going through the archives with Allison, but there was nothing for it.

"I need you to take care of the pack," he said quickly, and held his breath.

Boyd looked a little surprised, glanced quickly at Scott, who was still breathing heavily and sagging against Derek and Erica. His brows twitched upwards for a tick, and then he nodded.

"Alright." He said in his deliberate, steady way, all hints of Stiles-esque giddiness or jerkiness gone as soon as Stiles had fell backwards through the rift. But he looked at Derek and his brow creased in worry. "Just don't take too long."

Derek nodded, slowly let got of Scott, who looked calm, his face stark and pale and human again. And then he turned to where Lydia was grudgingly helping Deaton stand up.

I don't want to interfere...it goes against the laws of nature." he said quickly, "That thing went against the laws of nature. The rip seems to be repairing, we can't risk breaking it open again.”

“We can, and we will. Stiles fell saving all our asses.”

Deaton looked at the intensity and the fear in Derek's eyes. Derek knew that he saw it because for once he wasn't hiding everything. Deaton sighed, and turned to Lydia.

”Either you help us, or I'll find out on my own," she said, "and we might mess it up, and I don't think you want to risk that, to have it on your conscience.”

  
“If this rips the universe apart, I won't get a chance to say I told you so, so I'll go ahead and say it now...” Deaton said dryly, then waited a moment, and added, to Lydia, "Would you mind helping me set up the ritual?"

"Not at all," she said, "if it means bringing Stiles back."

Derek's shoulders sagged and he gave them some distance to prepare.

"If this works," Deaton said, creating an interlocking triple knot on the scorched floor, "then you must avoid your past self. And remember, this is only temporary, and can become volatile. It is not like a door through which you step. It's like a bungee cord. You fall to the farthest point you can reach, with no strict sense of aim, and then after a short amount of time, you will bounce back as the ripples of reality attempt to right themselves. Stiles was ripped out without a tether, so he is lost. We're not going to let that happen to you." He finished the design, holding his side as he straightened up, "And remember, Stiles did not fall alone. You may find him still possessed by Dragon, or connecting with other beings that inhabited the void. So be careful."

Derek nodded, trying to keep his rage in check as Lydia sprinkled herbs in each of the loops of the design.

"Just tell me what you did. How did you connect Stiles to that thing?"

"Step inside the center of the design," Deaton said, his eyes hard and wary.

Derek's brows shot down suspiciously, but he had no other choice but to trust him in this, at least, so he did it.

Deaton pulled a charred, honeycomb looking root from his pocket and handed it to Derek.

"Lotus root," he said, "symbolic of love and purity, with a strong connection to the moon. If it is prepared correctly, blessed in the light of the harvest moon, it can be used to bind lovers together."

“And you used this in the ritual with Ghost and Stiles because...”

Deaton looked away. “I worked with something that was dormant, but present.”

Derek worried about that...he turned the root over in his hands a few times, holding it delicately and gently. He could feel the soft burr, almost a hum, of energy coming off of it.

"You must simply hold it tightly, and think of your loved one. Imagine every aspect of Stiles, and picture him as clearly as you can. If the magic is strong enough, and if our foundation," Deaton motioned to the design on the floor, "connects you with the threefold state of the world, then the world should shift around you, and send you to where you desire."

"But how did you connect Stiles with Ghost?" Derek asked again, but Deaton gave him a mysterious half smile.

"Focus," he said.

And Derek repressed the urge to kill, again, and turned his mind to thoughts of Stiles.

"Are you sure about this?" Erica asked, a little apprehensively, and Derek opened his eyes with irritation.

“I'd be dead—we all would be—if it wasn't for him. I have to go after him.”

"Then I'm coming, too," Scott said, making for the ritual, but Deaton stopped him, which was a relief.

"No," he said, "just sending one person back is dangerous enough."

Scott huffed and crossed his arms.

Derek turned his back on him and closed his eyes again.

"So, no pressure," he muttered to himself.

  
  


Derek felt sweat trickled down the back of his neck and was on the verge of giving up. His head was aching and he was straining so hard to think of what he wanted, of going wherever Stiles was, that every muscle in his body was tense and trembling.

But he just couldn't take it any more and let his muscles go slack.

And felt a wash of icy air, like being thrown into a frozen lake, crash down over him. And he was falling. He was falling through nothingness, but it wasn't really falling. He felt a sense of purpose, that he was going somewhere in particular, and he let his hopes soar, in that moment, that Stiles was still alive, that he was safe and okay and all he had to do was find him and bungee back to where they belong. Because he had nothing left to lose.

But then the icy air warmed up, and Derek could see again, and he felt something sharp and flat jab into his back, and then he tumbled, hitting another one of the sharp flat—oh they're called steps he remembered abstractly, blinking and trying to make out the white and golden glow of the inn's walls and lights as he fell down the stairs, thump thump thumping the whole way down.

He felt a few bones crack and grunted in pain, squeezing his eyes closed and reaching out to grab something. He was met with cloth and flesh, and he clung to it, but he kept falling, a little further, and hit the wooden floor as the air rushed out of him, and the and the cloth covered wiry body scrambled against him with a few grunts and unintelligible words of his own.

Derek knew that body, and opened his eyes, grinning despite the pain.

“I didn't die, that's good," Stiles said, eyes wide and shocked.

"Good, very good," Derek panted.

"How about you, still living?" Stiles asked, face hovering over Derek's, coming in to focus.

"I think so," Derek said, running a hand over his face. But when he moved it away, a second face swam into focus, not quite familiar, but giving him a vague feeling of deja vu.

Stiles quickly scrambled up with the other guy's help, and Derek was worried when he disappeared from his site, leaving only the other guy in his line of vision.

“Stiles,” he said gruffly, reaching up.

Stiles jeans, then the rest of him, came back into sight as he knelt next to Derek, his brow furrowed.

”How do you know my name?” Stiles asked.

Derek closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to two.

"Son of a bitch! Can nothing ever go right for me?"

"Whoa, calm down," Stiles said, pressing a hand to his chest as he started to get up, "you just fell pretty bad. Hey, Healer, a hand, please?" Stiles asked, hand absently patting at Derek's chest as he looked up at the other guy.

Derek was irritated that the hand on his chest was actually soothing. "Damn it, Stiles," he muttered.

"Dude, seriously, how do you know my name? Nobody here knows my name. And I don't remember much else about me except..." he trailed off as Healer took Derek by the arm, and helped hoist him to his feet.

“Let's get you up, now,” Healer said evenly.

Something was very wrong. Derek could feel his body healing as it normally did, but he let the two of them half-carry him wherever they wanted.

Which was right back up the staircase that almost killed him. Wonderful.

But it worried him, the was Stiles kept looking to that Healer guy for guidance. And apparently he had lost his memory, so this was going to be even harder than he had expected.

They took the corridor to the right and stopped at the first room, Healer letting Stiles take all of his weight as he unlocked the door. Stiles sagged under the weight, and Derek got a leg under him moments before they would have fallen over.

"Dude, you're heavy."

"Derek, my name is Derek," he said, hating that he had to say it, that Healer was staring at him suspiciously as he helped him into the room and the dropped him unceremoniously onto one of the beds.

Healer checked him over quickly, not bothering to hide his suspicion or his snide comments about him. Derek found it irritating.

"Is he going to be alright?" Stiles asked, and Derek warmed a little at the worry in his tone.

"Oh, yes, he'll be fine," Healer said, staring him down, "he's already healing. He's a wolf."

Derek felt his heart starting to pound. What if Stiles didn't remember about the...

"Oh, cool, another one of you guys? God, you're coming out of the woodwork, huh?"

Derek relaxed back on the bed in relief, but then sat up with a little struggle and glared at Healer. There was something familiar about him, though he could swear he had never seen the guy before.

"Not one of us," Healer said, "or, one of the Hales, I should say. He must have a different pack. Just a weak Omega." His lips curled back in a sneer.

Derek snarled, showed Healer his red eyes, and then Healer's glowed gold as he stood his ground.

"Okay, no pissing contests, okay?" Stiles asked, stepping in front of the foot of the bed to separate them.

"One," he turned to Healer, "stop being a rude jerk. Two," he pointed to Derek, "your eyes are awesome, but please put them away. Red means Alpha, right?"

Healer shrugged, hunched in on himself, angry but closed off.

Stiles rolled his eyes to the ceiling, then turned back to Derek. "See what you did? Do you know how long it took me to get that ass to stop acting so weird? You are..." he trailed off, noticing the way Derek was looking at him, with a soft smile, instead of his usual anger.

"What?"

Derek's smile slipped quickly, and he looked down. “You really don't remember me, do you?" he asked quietly.

Stiles gave him a worried, considering look.

“I don't know.”

  
  


Stiles got the quick sense of contentment and good cheer from his surroundings before gravity took a hold on him and sent him tumbling down the stairs, somehow landing unscathed in the front of the inn, below the dais that should be burned to a cinder after the fire Ghost was somehow responsible for.

He saw a bright, glittering chandelier overhead, all in shining gold and yellow, darkening the walls from stark white to a gentle cream.

He blinked up at the site for a little while, mesmerized by the bright, soothing glitter of the lights until he heard footsteps.

He felt a wet tongue on his cheek and then saw a face hovering over his own, strong jawed with bright blue eyes.

“uuh”

a wet nose presses into his ear, snuffling, and then a sly pointed red face is staring down at him W _ell that's a relief._

“she likes you,” the guy hovering over him says with amusement, nudging her away and helping stiles sit up

stiles looked at the little fox in bemusement for a long moment

“I call her Pet. Because she is a horrible predator and pathetic as a wild animal,” the guy says with a twisted smile.

 

For a moment Stiles' breathing stopped. He felt the rage of another being twisting within his own mind, trapping him inside and he couldn't stop it couldn't do a damn thing he was helpless, trapped.

"Are you alright? That was quite a fall.” The guy said, “Let's get you fixed up."

Stiles got up slowly, the guy's arm around his shoulders for support, and they started towards the stairs, which Stiles thought was an odd move. "I'm fine," he said, "just a little banged up." He squinted, looking around at his helper. "Do I know you?"

The guy's face split into a grin and he laughed, a little sharply.

"I doubt it," he said, "I'm not even sure who me is..." he paused for a second. “They call me Pet Healer around here, though. It's kind of a joke. Not that you're a pet...Just Healer, I guess. It sounds fractionally less ridiculous.”

He led Stiles up the stairs and into a room to the right, sat him on the bed, and cleaned up a scrape over the ridge of his brow.

Stiles was still a little out of sorts and his mind was fuzzy, but he still remembered that him being quite was very odd. A fuzzy red body hopped up on the bed next to him, and he ran his fingers over Pet's soft ears.

After a little while, Healer felt the need to fill the silence.

“You see, when I first got here, I acquired a pet. Not really a pet, a fox. I got it out of the trap without getting mauled, and I healed it. We named her Poet. The Hales, they hunted down the poacher who set the trap, and they liked me after that. Were impressed, and let me stick around, help out with the handiwork and maintenance around here. Or else, I don't know where I'd go." He paused, fingers tracing the side of Stiles' face as he placed the bandage, and then looked into his eyes, "this place is home to me.”

The eyes that looked into Stiles' were a little intimidating in their scrutiny and intelligence. But his voice was warm, proud, with a hint of sadness there.

Stiles felt drawn to him, but he wasn't sure why.

"I'm Stiles," he said finally, offering a hand, and grinning when Healer slipped his hand inside, giving him a squeeze, "and i think I might have amnesia or something."

  
  


Derek didn't like being in the inn. He hated the feeling of hope he had every time he heard voices calling up the stairs, or feet stamping down the corridor. He knew that they were there. He knew that all he had to do was run out and look at them. That was all he wanted to do, just see them one last time. But he couldn't.

He didn't know what it would do to them, to see him the way he was. And he didn't think he could bear to see them again. He might just break down and fall to his knees, sobbing, if he saw his mother again. And then she would know it was him, despite the fact that he'd aged. Because there was no way she wouldn't recognize him. And she would kneel next to him, wrap her arms around him, and he would sob like a child until the world around him faded to black and he sprang back to his own time, leaving her clutching at air, leaving Stiles trapped in a time not his own, leaving his family to die.

He had to get out, as soon as he was healed enough to walk without a limp. He got to his feet and stretched, surprised when Stiles, and then a more moody Healer, followed him to the door.

He ignored them as he listened for the sharp, painful, joyful sounds of his family laughing and arguing with each other. And then he ran away from them, out of the inn, and onto the grounds, hunching his shoulders and hiding his face as he walked across the lawn and stepped into the cloaking shadow of trees.

He heard heavy panting and loud clunking footsteps followed by softer, more light footed steps as Stiles and Healer followed him. He leaned against the nearest tree and looked up through the branches as the graying sky, as the sun started to sink and stormy clouds obscured the brightest of the coming stars.

Stiles, losing his fear of Derek completely, flopped against the tree next to him to catch his breath. Derek was relieved, but a little irritated. He just needed some time to wrap his mind around everything. He needed a moment of peace, well, of quiet because he knew that peace was never going to happen.

"Derek, what was all of that about?" Stiles panted, head scraping against tree bark, some of it tangling in his hair and dropping on his shoulder.

Derek rolled his eyes and brushed at the shards on Stiles' shoulder, freezing when he noticed the way that Stiles was looking at him.

"What?"

Stiles took a moment to school his grin back down into a more neutral expression, and Derek, for a moment, hoped that he had been joking, that he still remembered him, everything they had been through.

"I just really wish I knew who the hell you were," Stiles said, lips turning down as worry darkened his eyes. "I can't remember anything, except falling. Falling, and a rage that terrified me, tried to consume me."

Derek heard Healer's breathing speed up, a few yards away. Stiles might not know he was there, but Derek could hear him. He tried to press down that anger at the kid, most likely, he was just infatuated with Stiles, and worried about him. But that didn't make it any easier.

"That thing, it's part of the reason you're here, instead of back home with me."

"With you?" Stiles asked, twisting his whole body around as he looked at him. Derek felt his face flush.

"With me, with your friends, your dad, with the pack?" Another sharp inhale from Healer's direction, and Derek snarled at him. "Can't we have a little privacy you little creep?" he snapped.

Stiles frowned at him. Derek sucked in a sharp breath and let it out slowly. Stiles frowned at him more. And Derek could still hear Healer snooping nearby.

"This Healer guy, I don't trust him," Derek said quickly, "I don't know what his motives are or why he's so adamant about being around you." Derek leaned in closer, looked deep into Stiles eyes. "I'm worried about you."

Stiles looked down, fingers running over the tree, chipping off clumps of bark, the only signs of his anxiety. "I could apply all of those things you just said to you, too, not just him," Stiles said quietly, looking back up and meeting Derek's eyes imploringly. "I don't know who to trust."

Derek wanted to shake him. It's me! I'm the one you should trust! But instead he rubbed a hand over his face and took a moment to gather his thoughts.

He took Stiles by the shoulders and squeezed. "It's me! I'm the one you should trust!"

But he knew the suspicious glint in Stiles eyes, so he let go in defeat and turned around. "I'll give you a little time to think," he said quietly, feeling the sharp pull of the moon, "I'm going for a run."

"Derek, wait..."

But Derek was already in his own world, trying to run off his anger and frustration since his anchor was going to be of no use at that moment, He had to burn off that energy somehow and killing Healer would be a bad thing apparently because Stiles liked and trusted him for some reason and Derek felt himself shifting as he dodged trees and vaulted over downed trunks and he let his wolf take control, revel in the run.

Until he lost all semblance of human thought and forgot the workings of time. He fell to the ground, panting, with the moon shining up above him in a faintly cloudy sky, a gentle mist falling over the woods, covering everything with a cool, silvery sheen of water.

That was when he heard it. The rustling of leaves and occasional snap of branches. For a moment he thought Healer had followed him, and just felt empty and tired. No desire to fight him anymore. He was just empty.

But then he heard the same thing from the other side, with a smaller form.

"I don't know if he went this way," an achingly familiar, young voice said, only to be shushed.

"I know he did. You can catch his scent, if you find the right currents in the air," a warm, feminine voice said. Derek smiled when he heard the little girl, Laura from many moons before, snuffling the air as she sought out the scent.

She crowed out when she caught it, but silenced herself quickly. "He smells familiar," she said, "like pack, but not quite."

"I know," Talia said to her daughter, worry coloring her tone, "that's why we're here. It might be a distant relation in need, seeking us out."

But their voices were getting closer, and as much as Derek wanted to stay, wanted them to find him, he couldn't let that happen.

He scrambled to his feet and quietly slipped away, taking his time to make his way back. He had a couple more close calls, almost running in to his father and Cora, as they searched another section of the woods, and hearing a burst of laughter that sounded like his own, as some of the other wolves played some kind of joke, frolicking in the darkness.

Derek felt his throat closing up. His mother had the entire pack out searching the woods, just because of his scent. His scent, which had changed so much since he was a child that they couldn't quite recognize it.

But still they searched, as if they knew on some level, that one of their own was alone and hurting and wanted nothing more than to be with them again. Derek's eyes blurred as he reached the edge of the grounds and he wiped frantically at his face before taking off at a run, banging insistently on the door where Stiles and Healer apparently bunked together.

He had nowhere else to go. And he needed help. He would even give Healer the benefit of the doubt, if it meant he could do something to keep those horrible things from happening to his family. He didn't give a damn how much he changed the future. If he could stop the fire, he could save them all.

And he would do everything in his power to stop that from happening. He would do everything in his power to stop Kate.

  
  


Derek berated himself for wasting time he didn't know he had in a random run in the woods, but made himself focus as he sat back on the bed in Stiles' and Healer's room, his fingers laced together as he stared down at them and gave in and told Stiles, and Healer, what was going to happen to the inn in the future.

"Jesus Christ," Stiles said, "no, oh my god, seriously?" He paused again, staring at Derek again, stricken, "either you're the biggest psychopath on the planet and an amazing liar, or that stuff is all true." He shook his head and collapsed next to Derek, his head in his hands.

That was reassuring, Derek thought dryly.

Derek had tried to tolerate Healer being there, despite the ingrained sense of wrongness he kept feeling around the guy. And he had told him, as well as Stiles, the truth about why he was there. But he hadn't looked at him.

When Stiles dropped his head, he made himself look over. And was surprised to see a look of concern on Healer's face. It looked odd, out of place, even though it was pointed at Stiles, and not at him.

When Healer glanced away and caught him staring, his entire face shifted into a bland, blank look that was void of any sort of feeling.

And Derek didn't know which of those faces were a mask.

It was unsettling.

More unsettling was when Healer moved slowly to sit at Stiles' other side and rested a hand on his back in comfort, how Derek wanted to, but didn't let himself, because he didn't want to push.

The way Stiles sighed at the contact was even more worrying. Healer's lips curled back from his teeth for an instant before he regained control of his face.

The only thing Derek knew for certain was that Healer disliked him. Whether it was because he saw Derek as a threat in Stiles' affections, or he was genuinely worried that he was bad news, Derek didn't know.

Stiles straightened up suddenly, surprising them both, his eyes wide.

"Wait a second, there was a fire when I first got here, it was one of the first things i remember. I saw Healer, and then smelled smoke. They had to evacuate the building."

"I don't see how that could be related," Healer said quickly, "there was just a problem with one of the dryers in the laundry room. It..."

"Spontaneously combusted?" Stiles asked with a raised brow. "Sounds a little fishy."

Derek shared the first look of true understanding he'd had with Stiles since his trip back in time.

"In the laundry room, you said?"

Stiles grinned a little wolfishly, and then beat Derek out of the room, Healer following them with a belabored sigh.

"You know, you could stay here," Derek said innocently, but Healer bared his teeth at him in a silent snarl, not bothering to flash his eyes.

Derek knew the way to the laundry room, but let Stiles lead the way, trying to hide in plain sight even though the inn was practically deserted at that time of the evening.

He knew as soon as they stepped across the boundary to the laundry room that something was up. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end, and he saw Stiles shiver in front of him.

"This place is creepy."

Healer snorted. "Yes, sheets and towels, terrifying," he said dryly, giving the big washers and dryers a dismissive look, before his eyes landed on the scorch marks on the wall.

Derek looked at the marks, above an industrial sized sink, and shooting down the wall, nowhere near the dryers.

He looked at Healer. "So, what started the fire?"

Healer stepped closer to the scorch marks, leaning against the sink to study it closely. "I haven't been in here since...they told me that..." He frowned and shrugged it off. "Maybe the dryer had an electrical short and started it in the wiring."

Derek caught the distrustful look that Stiles threw Healer's way, and felt a kindle of hope ignite in his gut. He knew he didn't have much time, De..De...the guy had told him he didn't have much time. He had to get Stiles and hurry. But why was Stiles here? He couldn't remember.

Derek felt a sharp flash of true fear. He couldn't remember. He knew there was a big blank spot in his memory, and that he and Stiles had to leave this place, but his memories of his own time were fading faster than he could keep a hold on them.

He knew his heart was beating frantically, like the wings of a caged bird, but he was fucking terrified and he couldn't control it. Healer was standing on the edge of one of the sinks, to get a better view of the scorched wall, when he whipped around to look at Derek in alarm, losing his balance and catching himself sharply right at the point of the burn.

He ducked his head under his arm, and addressed Stiles.

"What's up with him?"

Stiles looked at Derek, but Derek was already regaining control of himself, centering himself with deep breathing and pure stubbornness. Stiles took him by the arm, to steady him.

"I'm fine," he said quietly, and it was true.

Until he heard footsteps followed by the echos of the voice of a young, impressionable boy, who was answered warmly by a woman with a voice like velvet wrapped silver.

Derek felt prickles in the skin over his face as his entire body flushed,and absently noticed he was dragging Stiles across the room by his grip on his arm as he attempted to leave and follow the echoes, to go protect that poor, idiot boy.

Then he heard a muffled clunk, and felt a fist collide with the side of his head.

It didn't hurt, but it was irritating, so he turned to glare, but the wide eyed panic in Stiles' eyes helped him focus on reality again.

"Derek. Derek! Look at him!" Derek furrowed his brow, but then turned to where Stiles was pointing and saw Healer on the ground, flat on his back, holding ash-covered hands in front of his face, stricken with undeniable horror.

His eyes were rolling, wild, and his mouth was gaping open, like he was trying to scream, and couldn't.

"What the hell have i done now?" Derek asked, rushing with Stiles to kneel next to the boy, sick with guilt over being such an ass to him since first sight.

  
  


Healer started writhing on the ground, weight on his elbows as he arched his back, letting out silent half-gasps. Derek felt energy wrapping tight around him, that same prickling energy that was filling the room, giving him and stiles goosebumps, but he didn't know what to do. It felt familiar, but Stiles couldn't remember why. He pressed Healer's shoulders to the ground and looked up at Stiles, who was sick with fear and worry, his skin pale and sallow.

“I don't I don't I don't...” his hands were shaking and Derek had a feeling he knew what was going through Stiles mind.

“Stiles!” He yelled, as loud as he could, trying to snap him out of it. “Stiles, hold his legs down.”  
The haunted look stayed in Stiles' eyes, but his shaking stopped as he had a task, and pressed his hands down over Healer's legs as he kicked out in his fit, growling and snarling.

In the back of his mind, and at the fuzzy edge of his hearing., Derek could still hear Kate, and himself, in a silent, stolen moment. But he couldn't leave Healer and Stiles alone. He had to stay.

Healer's thin body thickened and muscled up and aged under his hands, and Derek couldn't look away as the bloom of youth hardened and toughened into true adulthood before his eyes, growing stronger, harder to hold down, and his snarls deeper.

Until Stiles' gasp threw his look down to him, and those older eyes widened in shock or recognition before he opened his mouth, only to let out a wracking sob as he shifted, and then continued to age, growing gray and cold and brittle with a wolf's face.

“Ghost,” Stiles gasped, “No, no, no, Derek, what do we do?”

Derek felt a shock wave of energy try to knock him backwards, but he held on, and when he straightened back up, Stiles was across the room, scrambling back over, and Healer looked still, like himself again, but older, though he was still other than his heavy breathing and whimpering.

Derek heard himself and Kate disappear into the night, and pulled Healer into his arms as tremors overpowered him again. He stumbled a little, feeling weak himself, and was steadied by Stiles as they headed for the door out.

“We have to get out of here,” he panted, “before this place kills him.”

“Why is this happening to him?” Stiles asked, “we're the ones who don't belong here. We should...”

“Don't know,” Derek said bluntly, trying to save his air as he ascended the stairs with Healer in his arms. “But the fire, it's connected to us, to our time.”

“How?”

Derek was silent as Stiles fumbled for Healer's key and shoved the door to the room open.

“I don't know.”

Stiles looked him in the eye, after he set Healer on the bed and straightened up. Derek could tell by the look in his eyes, that he had somehow regained Stiles' trust.

“We'll figure it out,” Stiles said, “together.”

  
  


Derek dropped healer down onto the bed he had vacated earlier, straightening his limp limbs into some semblance of sleep, and not commenting on his coma like state, breath puffing out an small bursts, his face crinkled and twisted in pain or fear, or both.

Stiles ran to the bathroom and came back with a damp cloth, brushing it over Healer's face and neck, attempting to coll the overheated flesh.

At Stiles' touch, the pain and crinkled look to Healer's face slowly receded, short hair plastering to his forehead as he snuffled and took a deep breath before his body slowly, like a flower unfurling, relaxed into the bed, his breathing deepening into something closer to a calm sleep.

Stiles sat back and threw his head back, eyes closed, and let out a deep sigh.

When he opened them again, Derek was staring at him.“You trusted me, why?” he asked.

Stiles studied him, eyes wide and haunted, and sad.

”I don't know. It just felt natural,” he said, head tilted to the side curiously. He slowly got off of the bed and stood in front of Derek, lifting a hand to cup his face, his expression confused and otherwise unreadable.

Derek couldn't help it, he moved in to the touch, the comfort, after all the crap he'd gone through. He could never resist Stiles.

"I thought so," Stiles said softly, his eyes soft as he brushed his fingers through Derek's hair. "So, how did we meet?" he asked, a flicker of sadness darkening the warmth.

Derek had another moment of blind panic where he couldn't remember what he was doing, who he was, and why he was there, until he reached further back and found warm, irritating memories of stiles.

He pushed into those memories, of him and Stiles arguing, of them fighting about the safety of the pack and the town, but just as he got a grasp on them, they slipped through his fingers, leaving only darkness and emptiness.

Derek knew his eyes were wide and staring, but he couldn't control it. Stiles' grip on his face tightened, and he was forced to look into those sharp, intelligent eyes.

"What's the matter?" Stiles asked sharply.

"I can't remember."

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Derek, that is the lamest attempt at a deflection I have ever..."

"No," Derek said, twisting his hands up in Stiles shirt to hide the shaking and pulling him closer. "I can't remember how we met. I can't...I can't remember much of anything."

"Shit," Stiles breathed, "oh, shit, that's not good. You said we were from the future? Maybe being in the past is stripping those memories away from us."

"We have to get out of here," Derek said, grasping at straws, forcing his brain to word, "before all of our memories are wiped and we live ourselves to death in the past."

Stiles scrambled around the room wildly like a baby giraffe learning to walk and came back with paper and a pencil.

"Okay, tell me everything you can remember."

Derek sat back down with his head in his hands and forced himself to remember, to tell Stiles everything he could think of.

"All i know is that you fell through time in order to save us all, and then I came after you, to get you back. But now...I'm losing my memories, and I have to stop the fire, I have to stop Kate, before I forget about it, and before we run out of time. I want to save my family. I want to bring you back home where you belong."

Stiles' frantic scribbling stopped and he looked up at Derek slowly, eyes wide and shocked.

"You're not making this up, are you? All that's true, isn't it?"

Derek heaved a sigh.

"Yes."

Stiles nodded. "Derek, you look wrecked. Get some rest. I'll keep an eye on Healer. I need to think, figure things out, anyway."

Derek knew they didn't have time to waste, but he stumbled over and collapsed on the second bed. He was asleep in moments.

  
  


Derek's breathing had just evened out, taking on the familiar snuffling quality of sleep when Stiles saw Healer stir, lean up, and look for him.

“Stiles.” His voice was rougher and older, but still the same person.

Stiles sat down on the edge of his bed, and ran the cool cloth over his forehead again. He tried not to think too much, and for a moment managed to ignore the disappointed look Healer was giving him. He had obviously heard everything. Sneaky bastard playing coma.

Stiles sighed.

“I know it's crazy, but when Derek was talking, i couldn't remember anything, but I felt it. It feels like he's telling the truth." He shrugged, looked Healer in the eye. "I trust Derek. I don't like him much, but I trust him. My brain trusts that what he's saying is true, even if it can't find the memories of the things he's talking about.”

Stiles smiled, sadly, as Healer's expression shot down even further.

Healer sat up and looked away from him, head down, speaking more into his own chest than to Stiles.

“I know it's selfish, and I'm an ass for even saying it, but I don't want you to go," he said, sounding young, throwing stiles one sharp glance before looking away again. "I like you. For once in my life, there's somebody who knows me. Who cares about me. And I'm not ready to give that up without a fight.” He twisted back around sharply, with vitality that Stiles didn't expect, and took his hand. He scooted closer and leaned it.

For an instant, Stiles toyed with the idea. He felt his eyes drift closed, Healer's breath on his cheek, but he got control and made himself pull away, despite the connection he felt.

Healer's hand tightened painful around his for a moment, before Stiles wrenched it away, and found himself pressed back against the bed, head knocking against the foot board as Healer stared down at him.

“I know you feel it too, this connection between us." He traced a thumb over Stiles' bottom lip, making it tingle, and Stiles had to use every bit of willpower not not to flick out his tongue, to not suck the digit into his mouth, to not just say fuck it all and shove Healer backwards, straddle his lap, and grind against him until they were both spent and soft as putty. But he pursed his lips and fought it, the strong visceral urge. He had been dealing with that temptation in the weeks he'd been stuck here with Healer, never really know why he'd denied him.

But now he knew.

And the reason was still sleeping soundly in the next bed over.

"Why are you fighting this?” Healer asked, face creased with genuine confusion.

Stiles moved slowly, but firmly disentangled himself from Healer. He knew that the poor guy was on his own. They were a lot alike. Both were stuck, cast adrift by circumstance, and they'd become allies over the past few weeks.

Healer was full of shit most of the time, but Stiles was good at calling him out on it, and it made a fun, give and take relationship. So he really cared about the guy.

He gently took Healer's hand in his, and looked him in the eye.

"Healer, you're a great friend, and I wouldn't have survived the last few weeks without you..." He was going to say more, but Healer jerked his hand away. He didn't have to say anything else.

"Just tell me why?" Healer asked.

Stiles looked reflexively at Derek, face slack and exhausted in sleep.

Healer's face clouded over, and Stiles worried that he was in true danger. But Healer's eyes widened, reading his face, and he strode out like a cyclone clad in denim and wrenched the door open.

“I'm not a thing to be used and discarded. We were fine, better than fine, until he showed up!”

Healer barged out the door and slammed it behind him.

Stiles dropped back onto the bed and whimpered into his hands.

”So that went well.”

  
  


“What just happened?” Derek was startled wide away by the loud noise, but just saw Stiles laying back on the bed with his hands over his face, making pitiful whimpering noises.

”Healer doesn't take no very well." Stiles said evenly, getting up and trying to make no big deal about it. He finally turned around and looked at Derek. "He never acted like that before.” There was worry, and also fear, in his face.

"So you think that was the fire residue that caused it? If he's not being himself." Derek said, eyes narrowing.”And we're the ones in a different time, so why did the fire room affect him so badly?”

Stiles hunched in on himself for a moment, arms wrapped around his stomach, before he grimaced and made himself straighten up. ”I don't know, but we need to find him before he does something crazy.”

Derek was on alert and on his feet in an instant. "You seriously think it might be that bad?"

Stiles nodded, and that was all it took to get him up and out of the room, stiles on his heels as they rushed out and he tried to pick out sounds of Healer from all the other normal nightly noises.

“Maybe it has something to do with the was he he just randomly showed up a few weeks before we did, no connections, just a lost soul from nowhere,” Stiles panted, "I thought he was just an orphan, but now that I think about it...there's something at the back of my mind, nagging at me."

Derek stopped stock still, comprehension dawning on him.

“It's him. It has to be him. How did I not see it?” He felt a foggy, dark memory of something he couldn't see, growling in the shadows.

Derek smelled smoke, and saw Stiles cover his own nose a moment later, eyes going wide.

"It's the fucking Dragon!" Derek growled, grabbing Stiles by the arm and taking off down the stairs, through the smoky lobby, and into the billowing smoke of the laundry room.

  
  


The flames were small, inside a rapidly melting laundry cart with the sick smell of gasoline as sheet doused in the liquid smoked and slowly caught aflame.

Healer was standing a few feet away from the cart, holding Kate by the throat.

Stiles rushed to the sinks and filled the nearest thing, a big yellow mop bucket, with water, tense and agitated as he waited for it to fill.

"I knew she was bad news from the start," Healer growled, his face rough and hollow in the rocking shadows caused by the flames. Derek was frozen on the spot.

“She was sly and she smelled of wolfsbane, and the kid just let her in, fell headlong into her arms. I never liked her, now I know why.”

Kate destroyed his family, in the future, but that hasn't happened yet, and he stares as he legs twist and kick at Healer's middle, as he held her up.

His stomach turned and he felt sick, and only partly because of the billowing black smoke as stiles smothered the gas fire with water.

If Healer kills her now, and they stop the fire, everyone will be saved. And it will leave him without her blood on his hands.

But Kate was a fighter, Derek knew that, and she broke out of Healer's grip with ease, using her own weight to knock him over. But Healer was a fighter, too. He scrambled to his knees and pounced, shoving her over and making her use her legs against his middle to kick him away.

Derek rushed over to help, who he wasn't sure, but then Kate ran backwards a few steps, tripping over the canister of gasoline, spraying it all over her and the ground around her.

She was dripping with it, and she froze, eyes wide and stricken, as Healer hovered over her.

Healer took a few steps closer to the soggy lumps of ashen clothing and sheets, picked up a lighter from the floor, and studied it.

His expression was dark, different, than Derek had seen before. He looked older, sharper, more angry.

Derek heard Stiles gasp as Healer flicked the lighter and stared at the flame, transfixed.

Derek started forward again at the same moment that Stiles did, but a dismissive had up and stopped in their tracks.

"It's funny how such a little thing can do so much," Healer said in a curious, dangerous voice, "fluid converts to gas, flint creates spark, spark lights gas.”

“Healer, please...” Stiles' voice was desperate, terrified, and Derek knew once and for all that Stiles was a better person than him. Most of Derek was horrified, too, but there was that one little voice, in the back of his mind, that was wishing, hoping, _Drop it. Burn her alive, like she did to my family._

Healer looks=ed away from the lighter and let it got out, giving Stiles a soft look with a razor sharp edge.

“It's Peter,” he said, eyes darkening and brow shooting down, “Peter Hale.”

He looked at Derek, and it was like a punch in the gut. His mind had no memory of a Peter Hale. None whatsoever. But he knew with certainty that it was true. He knew in the synapses were firing in his brain, searching for something that should be there, in the way his hands trembled, in in the choked up lump in his throat. He knew, in that moment, that he was family. That the sense of wrongness he'd felt had been within his own mind, in the absence of those memories, even before he began to forget everything else.

“Peter,” he said quietly, and it was a question.

Healer, Peter, understood. “I don't know," he said softly, entranced by his lighter again, flicking it on and off, "During my...fit...I remembered a lot of things, horrible things, so much pain and torment, and most of them haven't happened yet.”

“You can change them!”

“Can I?” Peter shook his head, a strange, scary grin twisting his face wolfishly. “I'm not sure I want to. Who would dare gainsay the hand of fate? Here, now, I'm weak, I'm nobody. But if a fraction of the stuff I've seen happens, I'll change the world. Leave a mark on it no one can erase."

“That mark's a wound!” Stiles cried, taking another hesitant step forward.

Peter shrugged, then gave Stiles a wink. “That's better than nothing. Besides, this way," his face sobered for a moment, looking directly into Stiles' eyes, "at least I had a friend. For a little while. At least I'll have the memory of you.”

“Peter, you idiot,” Derek really tried for nice, “if everything happens the way it should, you'll turn into a raging Ghost monster hell-bent on destroying the world.”

“How do you know that? Did you ever ask the ghost why it did whatever it did? Maybe he ripped a hole in time for the family he never had, that he was meant to have. Maybe he did it for love. For...” he looked at Stiles again.

“You might not come out of this well, sweetheart," Stiles said, just this side of condescending, trusting Derek's word, “plus the whole murder thing. Not good.”

“I know." Peter snapped, glaring at him and shoving him away as he got too close. "Get out of here. Go home.”

Derek started after Peter, but Stiles was shoved violently into his arms and by the time he righted them both, flames were licking their way across the floor, consuming the gasoline, jumping from small splashes across the walls and igniting everything within site.

He smelled burning flesh and hair, and felt the blistering flames growling and growing around them as two yelled out, one in anger and triumph, and another in the throes of death.

The flames spread out in an arc, consuming the room and licking at the ceiling and the walls, spreading faster than Derek would have imagined.

“No,” Derek croaked, barely breathing. His eyes caught Peter's. The flames weren't just erupting around Kate, but everywhere. Peter was struck by that realization and looked as if he were in pain as the flames licked up around him.

“Oh, no,” he said, almost too quietly for Derek to hear. His face twisted into a mask of fear, and then anger again, as he clutched his head and dropped to his knees amidst the flames.

Before he knew it, he was being dragged out of the laundry room and into the main entryway and up the stairs by Stiles, who was trying to wake him to reality.

He hammered on the nearest doors, and Derek went around to do the same, but the inn was quiet and groggy in the early morning. But Derek could hear unhappy mumbles starting up and banged along one side of the corridor as Stiles did the other, yelling out hoarsely after inhaling all the smoke downstairs.

But he could hear the fire roaring stronger and faster by the moment, and the heat was heat was starting to peel paint from the walls, so he wrenched opened the nearest door, grabbed the frightened child, and pulled him down the stairs, ordering him out into the sunlight.

"Derek," Stiles' breathing was ragged and he was near tears as a few other guests rushed out past him, but Derek was staring after the little boy he'd just saved. The one with a horrible life ahead of him.

He watched the young child wipe his eyes, wake up, and have to be held back from running back into the burning building for his family by another guest. 

"Derek!"

When Derek looked around from his shock, he saw Stiles running back the other way, towards the laundry room.

“No, Stiles, no!”

  
  


Stiles knew how much of an idiot he was being, but he couldn't stop it was like there was a magnetic pull dragging him back to the laundry room, consumed with flames. But he saw Peter collapsed on the floor and risked the flames, the heavy burns, and he dropped onto the hot stone ground next to him.

"Come on, get up," he breathed, hacking and coughing as he grabbed Peter by the arm and tried to get him up, but he was too weakened by the fire, but the adrenalin surging through his body letting him down.

He grabbed at Peter again with shaking hands, anger rising and boiling through him, but froze and an eerily familiar presence trickling like ice water down his back.

"Ghost?" He breathed, and then wondered what it meant as Derek rushed to his rescue and helped him pull Peter's limp body up.

At Derek's presence, Stiles heard a rough growl in his ear, and reflexively rolled his eyes, wondering at the reaction.

He could hear some screams, and the thump of footsteps as people ran from the inn, but it couldn't be all of them.

But Peter's lolling head straightened up suddenly as he woke, his eyes wide, scared and stricken, as they pulled him from the laundry room, where the fire was starting to burn down the hall, to another set of rooms.

Sanity, or reality, crashed down in peter's eyes, and with a icy calmness, he pulled up and away from them, running into the racing fire towards the rooms, to warn the others down the hall from the laundry room of the fire.

“Peter, no! It's too late!” Stiles yelled after him, Derek holding him back with an arm across his chest.

Peter turned back once, for a moment, to get a last look at them.

”Get the hell out of here!” he cried, his voice cracking as he disappeared down the hall in the thick fog of smoke.

“One unidentified body, 2 unaccounted for,” Derek said softly, looking at Stiles.

Stiles' face falls in sudden, overwhelming grief, and Derek fought to keep from mirroring him.

“He dies,” Stiles said softly, but then his face hardened, "the hell he does. We've got people to save."

He took Derek by the hand, and Derek couldn't help but grin at the ferocity in him. They As a unit, they took off after Peter, to help him warn the rest of the Hales, and the other guests, about the fire about to consume them all.

But the world disintegrated around them at the same moment that the roof over their heads started to crumble, and they were pulled back to the present.

  
  


Derek woke back to reality with the sun in his eyes and a heavy weight on his arm. He knew from the smell of ash that they were at the inn, and slowly opened his eyes, getting up and tugging his arm away from Stiles.

He heard a dull thunk and "ow," and felt a small sense of pleasure about it before the events of their time in the past caught up with him, and he looked at Stiles, who was still laying down, staring up at the sky with an unreadable look on his face.

"Stiles," he said softly, and gave him a hand up as he heard a yelp and footsteps as the others rushed over to check on them.

"We didn't do it," he said quietly, "why did we have to come back just then?"

"I don't know," Derek said, stomach flipping with guilt, "I wish we could have done more, too." He gritted his teeth and pushed out the cliche, "maybe it was meant to be this way." 

Deaton stood back and Scott, Lydia, and Allison took their turns for relieved hugs, and then he stepped up. "It's been a week days," he said quickly, "we were worried."

Derek's brow furrowed. "But it's only been a few hours..."

Deaton shrugged, "time works in mysterious ways," he said cryptically, giving him and Stiles a considering look.

But then they were distracted as Lydia fluttered a paper in their faces. "Look," she said, "I found something, tell me what it means!"

Derek grabbed at the paper that almost gave him a paper cut of the nose and held it in front of him and Stiles.

It was the obit section of a newspaper, and it showed a two photos. One was a young boy with a fox, its leg in a cast. It was Healer. The caption read that he died, saving the lives of some guests of the hotel, and young Derek hale, pictured below, his eyes ringed with black as he held the same fox in his arms.

"How did we miss this before?" Stiles asked Lydia, then looked at Derek.

She shrugged, eyes them both sharply. "Maybe you changed something," she said, raising her brows, before catching Derek's expression and giving them some space.

“He died. SO did the rest," Stiles said, staring down at the paper and swallowing.

”I wanted to save them,” Derek said softly, letting his emotions color his words for once.

”I know," Stiles said, folding up the paper and pocketing it as Scott rushed back over for another hug, "so did I.”

"Dude, I'm so glad you’re not dead!"

Stiles spluttered out a laugh despite himself, catching Derek's eye over Scott's shoulder. "So am I," he said, eyes shining as he grinned, "so am I."

  
  


The next few days were a chaotic mass of confusion over which Derek and Stiles slowly regained their memories.

Deaton believed that the loss of memories of the future was the way that the past time tried to auto correct for their presence there. But it was weird. And it consisted of Derek, on no less than three occasions, getting obscene memory flashes involving Stiles' mouth on various parts of his body, in public, and having to excuse himself quickly from whatever he was doing.

And Stiles, that bastard, found it fucking hilarious, even as he followed Derek and recounted some of his own memories sliding back into place and okay so those might have been very good days but they would have been better spent in a private place with a locking door than in an elevator he only remembered was clear glass moments before it was too late, and in the Macy’s changing room, and Derek had a feeling that Stiles only took him to the mall that day to exercise his exhibitionist streak.

But everything had settled back into its normal rhythm, and they had decided to go out on a walk, through Stiles' suburban neighborhood so as not to risk the wrath of demons, ghosts, or wild boars.

“I'm so done with all of the time crap," Stiles said out of nowhere, "I say we retire.”

Derek paused for a moment, feeling a deep sense of satisfaction as Stiles bumped into him and let out an audible "oof."

”Agreed," he said, walking again,"Let's keep business to our pack.”

Stiles rushed to catch back up with him.

”Our pack?”

Derek risked a glance, trying not to smile.

”Of course. Do you really think I can take on all their issues without your help?” 

"Dude, you're the Alpha, I know you can take care of your own people..."

Derek started ticking off things on his fingers. "Scott is in love with Allison, and Isaac thinks he has feeling for both of them, though both of them are either clueless or acting that way. Erica's still not over being possessed, which is reasonable, though Boyd is helping her with it. There’s something weird happening with animals around here that might be outsider wolves, or an actual mountain lion..."

"Or maybe a wild boar," Stiles added helpfully.

"Or that," Derek said, then continued, "I'm worried about Boyd going Omega to get away from all the drama, if not for Erica, he already would have..." He snaked another glance at Stiles.

"Okay, point taken, you need help." Stiles hesitated, "You do remember me, us, now, right? Not just the...fun stuff?”

”I think so, yeah,” Derek said lightly, a little teasing.

Stiles narrowed his eyes at him.

”Then how did we first get together?”

"You're the one that lost your whole memory and just got it back, shiny new, you tell me."

Stiles rolled his eyes, "you can never just do what I ask can you?"

Derek smiled, tugged Stiles closer to him by the belt loops. "I remember something about the whole town going to hell, and us having to work together to save it, even though you were a pain in the ass the whole time."

"Me, pain in the ass? You were an arrogant prick!"

Derek tilted his head.

"Then why did you kiss me?" He grinned, eyes shining, as Stiles couldn't pretend at the mock anger anymore.

"I just did it to shut you up, is all," he said in a tone that didn't match the words, pressing a hand to Derek's chest, and then sliding it up to his neck. 

Derek saw the tenderness in Stiles' eyes as he leaned in, eyes flicking down to lips, and back up to his eyes.

He let his own eyes slide closed as Stiles kissed him, sighing into his mouth. The kiss was soft, slow, and real. He brushed his nose against Stiles' cheek as his eyes slid back open.

“Sounds like a perfect ending,” he said.

Stiles cellphone bleeped at him, and he jumped and they headbutted.

"Sorry, sorry," Stiles said, pulling out his phone as Derek rubbed his injured head. He was just a human how could his skull be so fucking hard?

"Text from Scott," Stiles said, glancing back up at him, "he says he has big news, and we need to talk ASAP."

“What kind of news?” Derek asked, sighing, the moment was gone.

Stiles shrugged.

”Who knows? Either the world's ending or Allison got her tongue pierced. With Scott, you never know.”


	3. After the End and Before the Beginning

### Paradox Wolf Vol. 3: After the End and Before the Beginning

  
  


Scott put down the phone after texting Stiles with a stronger sense of accomplishment than was absolutely necessary, considering all he'd done was type out a single sentence.

"So, what are we going to call ourselves, if we go through with it?" he asked, spinning around in his chair to look at Allison and Lydia, sitting on Allison's bed with similar flushed, excited expressions.

"What do you mean if?" Lydia asked, "Of course we're gonna do it. And we're going to be fantastic. We just need to make a plan. We know there's non pack stuff going on here. somebody needs to do stuff to protect the populous. more than the hunters do."

"She's right," Allison said, "we just need to think things through, do it the right way, and then maybe we'll survive."

Lydia was looking up at the ceiling, a thoughtful expression on her face. "About the name...Since it's just the three of us, why not just go with LSA? But have it mean nothing, like a pseudo acronym.”

"I like it, it has a mystique to it," Allison said, nodding. 

Scott grinned. ”Or it could mean Let's Sleep with Allison,” he said, laughing at his own joke.

Lydia tilted her head and gave him an even look.

”Moving on,” she said, with no acknowledgment of his joke as Allison kicked him in the shin, "if we're going to fight supernatural crime, we need to learn as much as possible, from as many angles as possible. It's not going to be easy."

Scott made himself settle down, easier than a moment before, thanks to the ache in his shin.

"Too bad we can't just study it and then do an internship,” he said, sighing. No majors in supernatural creatures, werewolfery, or metaphysical dangers.

Allison raised her chin, a smile slowly breaking out over her face. She looked slowly from Lydia to Scott, eyes squinting as her smile widened.

"Maybe we can.”

  
  


The LSA got a few too many opportunities to hone their craft, to work together in the face of dangers, the evil and the unassuming, but their times together ebbed and flowed, depending on when they were needed, and when Scott and Allison were on again in their on again, off again relationship.

  
  


Three years after graduation, Allison was leading her own group of hunters in the Northwest, tracking down a human cult using false big foot sightings to lure in tourists and sacrifice them.

Lydia was working on her studies, still in touch with Deaton, and a few new contacts, learning and theorizing ways to connect the natural and the supernatural.

And Scott was guiltily integrated into the pack he had been studying. He had learned a shitload about traditional pack practices that he'd never thought he'd know. Pack healing, more than taking pain, was difficult, but not impossible. Especially with his veterinary studies to lean on. He was learning more by the day.

And still missing Allison.

They still got together, every once in a while, when their paths crossed. Not often enough. It would never be often enough.

But it was well enough that she wasn't around at the moment, because they were securely in the off stage, and yelling would happen if she was there. Lots of it. And they would probably both get texts from Lydia out of the blue that said something like 'Stop being stupid.' or 'You guys will never learn, will you?' or "don't make me come down there."

They still, after years, hadn't figured out how she knew. Either she had a mole, someone stalking them, or was just psychic. Neither of them wanted to look to closely. They were too worried about what they'd discover. 

But they had been on the job for around five years, on and off. Currently off.

And it all started with the Ghost situation. For them.

For Stiles and Derek, that was where it all ended.

 

The moon was full and Scott was late for a meeting with his pack. His normal pack. There was fighting, of course, but they kept their heads down and kept their business secret from the normal humans in the big university town. It was easier to blend in than Scott ever expected.

He always thought, more people, more people to hide his secret from. But his new pack knew better. The more people, the more people there were around to blend in with. To mix themselves up with and hide.

Everyone was busy with their own lives, and didn't really care about that one guy who acted weird and freaky as the full moon approached and then disappeared on the full moon nights. He was just an eccentric with weird ways. And they dismissed him. Didn't care enough to hunt him down and discover his secret.

Scott was thankful for that.

But it was also isolating. It hurt.

He was thankful for Lola and Rich, and the rest of his new pack. He still thought of them as his new pack, even though they had been together for three years.

Derek was never his Alpha, not after the way he'd changed him, and still refused to admit it. Scott didn't know why Derek still liked about it, but he had tried to let it go, and Derek was like a brother by blood and sweat and fear. And he felt like he was defiling that bond by being with Lola's pack.

Even though they were good to him, and good for him. they gave him steadiness and support, something he really needed, all alone at school, with only a few visits back home to his mom and his true pack, a year.

He was late for a meeting with his new pack. But he knew they wouldn't be too upset. He was heading out the door, cool crisp air blasting him in the face. He still wasn't a fan of winter, but it was easier to deal with with the heightened body temp of being a wolf.

His phone beeped at him, and he looked down to see he had a missed call from Stiles and a new voice mail.

He started down the rocky path out the back door of his apartment, hopped the little creek, bypassing the cute little bridge, and disappeared into the darkened park, with the moon shining down on him, as strong as the sun's rays, with his sensitivity to its light.

"Hey, Scott, buddy, haven't heard from you in a while. Just checking in." There was a pause of around 2 seconds. "Actually that's a lie. Things around here are a little hectic, as usual. Derek's having trouble keeping the betas in line, what with a new group of hunters snooping around. Isaac wants to take them out on his own. So maybe you should give him a call. He listens to you. And, do you have Allison's new number? Her old burner's dead, and maybe she could get these hunters off our asses. The pups are being nice, honest." Stiles paused again, and sighed. "But we are having issues, so maybe it's not a bad idea to have hunters around. but they do need to be informed about us. That we're the good guys. You see, another pack's moved in next door, right outside our territory." His tone warmed up. "And apparently they don't respect borders. Or Derek. Or me or Erica, Boyd, or Isaac, or Danny. Not that we've changed Danny, even though he's interested. We kind of let the wolf out of the bag on that one when one of the other pack started a fight around him. He didn't freak out, like, at all and he's considering joining up. Though we're not sure if he's doing it for the right reasons. (Are there right reasons for wanting to turn into a hairy beast?) But did you hear that? Derek's growing up a little. A very little. And thinking about things before acting. Sometimes. for once."

Scott thought that the message was over, but he could faintly hear Stiles breathing, still, so he waited. Eventually Stiles spoke again.

"You know I'm in school now, right? I'm still in Beacon Hills with Derek, helping with the pack. I'm a damn Alpha-assistant. I commute. At the moment, I'm studying art, I guess, or something, but I'm thinking about studying to become a cop, like dad. But I'm not sure of that, either. I guess I haven't decided yet."

Stiles took a few deep breaths, then spoke quickly.

"I'm having trouble sticking to one game plan because the idea of sticking with one career for the rest of my life is frankly terrifying so could we change the conversation, please, because this is freaking me out and it's too early for me to have a midlife crisis, right, Scott?"

A few more deep breaths.

"So, sorry to ramble to your voice mail, but other than the normal weirdness and stressfulness, Something is going on around here and I'm not sure what it is.

I just feel odd. Ghost-level odd. with a capital O. So can you please just get back to me, asap. I would really appreciate it."

Scott's throat went dry, and he wasn't feeling all that great all of a sudden. The moonlight seemed to beam down on him brighter, making him sweat, and he felt queasy.

As far as he knew, Stiles hadn't mentioned capital G Ghost in years. It was a bad sign. That was why Stiles had decided to stay in Beacon Hills, instead of traversing the country. Ghost was the reason he had some of his trust issues, and abandonment issues, and felt too tightly linked with Derek to leave, even for a couple of semesters at a time.

He walked through the park a little quicker, trying to outrun his worries, but it didn't work. He had his phone back out, planning on listening to the message a second time, when his phone rang and he yelped, dropping it on the ground.

He picked it up sheepishly glancing around, and grinned at the smiling face staring back at him.

"Allison," he answered, "it's good to hear from you."

But Allison's breathing was a little staggered, and her voice was near panic-levels.

"Scott," she said, "“Deaton just called me. We have to go to Beacon Hills ASAP.”

“What's wrong?”, he asked, though the feeling in the pit of his stomach was even worse, He had a feeling.

”Not sure...said it was Stiles and Derek. Danny and Boyd brought them in.” Allison got control of her voice, and she sounded almost normal. But it didn't fool Scott. She was just as scared for them as he was, and she hadn't got a strange message from Stiles like he had.

”I'll meet you there.” Scott stretched his arms to the sky, taunting and then relaxing his muscles.

And then he was gone, a blur running through moonlight and shadows.

”Scott! Don't run all the way here. You aren't invincible!”

But the phone was clenched tightly in Scott's hand, and he couldn't hear her over the roar of the wind in his ears.

  
  


Even with the moon spurring him on, Scott took hours to get back to Beacon Hills. At the halfway point, he realize that it might not have been the best idea to take off at a run instead of taking his bike, but it was too late. So he slowed his pace to a steady lope and let his actions settle him into a calm mental state.

He could tell, even running through the woods, when he reached Beacon Hills. The air felt different, smelled different. It had a charge to it, a familiarity that was one part comforting, two parts eerie, and one part pack.

He heard a solitary wolf's howl and answered it with a grin. It was Isaac. Apparently Allison had let them know he was on his way. He ran out of the shadows in the direction of the howl, towards the vet clinic, where Isaac's cry would probably be mistaken for a lonely pet.

He walked through the familiar doors, but it was jarring. The clinic was still clean and smelled of antiseptic cloaking sickness and blood. But there was a shabbiness to the place that he didn't remember.

And there were rambunctious noises coming from the back.

Isaac met him in the doorway and pulled him into a hug that would have cracked weaker bones. He saw Deaton over Isaac's shoulder, smiling, though his eyes were lined and tired, and worry tightened his mouth.

He pulled away and started to look at something that caught his peripherals, smiling at the familiar perfume, but a blow to the back of the head sent him stumbling back into Isaac.

"Ow!" He spun around to stare at Allison in surprise, rubbing his head.

"I told you not to run the whole way!" She said, exasperated, though her cheek dimpled as she fought off a fond smile.

But their reunion was cut short by rambunctious noises in back. Scott heard growls and the rasp of chains and the creak of wood.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Danny and Erica found them a few hours ago, and brought them here. Erica and Boyd are scouting out the other pack to see if they're involved, somehow... I'm not sure what's going on," Isaac said, "Danny said they were fighting. And not the normal stuff. Serious stuff." He turned to Deaton.

Deaton opened his mouth, but closed it quickly as headlights flashed through the window as a sharp little car pulled up out front. Quickly followed by Lydia's heels scraping on the asphalt of the parking lot.

"Planning on starting without me?" she asked as the door clinked closed behind 

her.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Deaton said, "to the point: from what I can gather, Derek and Stiles don't remember each other, or the months following their first meeting."

"How's that possible?" Allison asked.

Raised voices from the back, and then Danny walked out of the back, rubbing the back of his neck. "Just leave the human with the crazy Alpha and his crazy boyfriend, I see how it is. Can't we at least get some duct tape?” He stopped mid step and straightened up. "It's not time for a school reunion yet, is it?"

“What are they doing?” Lydia asked.

”Fighting. Constantly.” Isaac said with a belabored sigh.

”So, the usual?”

”Worse. Much worse.” Deaton said seriously, arms crossed over his chest, "they still feel linked to one another, even though they lack their memories, and that is leading to fear and confusion, which they're taking out on each other."

"Do we know what's causing it?" Lydia asked, lips pursed.

Deaton tensed, looked at the ground for a moment before looking back up at Lydia. His shoulders sagged.

"I have no idea." 

Scott's eyes widened. Deaton never would have said that to their younger selves...he always knew, but sometimes hid what he knew...it was...jarring.

  
  


Scott and the others stepped warily into the back to get a look at Derek and Stiles. Derek was chained to the wall, his wrists padded but cuffed as he tried to tug a steel bolt out of the wall. Stiles was tied to a spindly wooden chair that creaked every time he shifted his weight.

Scott had a feeling that, if either of them really wanted to get loose, they would be able to. He wasn't sure why he felt that way, it was just an instinct.

And they weren't really that worried about the bondage, he noticed, as they stepped inside.

Derek and Stiles were too busy impotently glaring at each other to even bother to look away as the whole group of people walked into the room and started staring at them in puzzlement and worry.

It was obvious that the level of fondness Scott was used to seeing wasn't there. There was heat, anger, and fear in their eyes. And Derek's eyes were flashing red, but Stiles just snarled his nose in response, unwavering in his anger.

In the face of that fury, of those familiar faces warped into something so alien and absurd, Scott broke down.

He couldn't help it.

He laughed.

He laughed until he was out of breath, panting with his hands on his knees.

"Scott!" Allison said, making his straighten up.

"I can't help it," he choked, "they're just so angry."

"Scott, shut up," Stiles said, voice wavering as he finally looked away from Derek to glare at Scott.

Who burst into another bout of giggles.

"Hey, I mean it!" Stiles said, trying to look intimidating, but his mask crumbling as Scott's giggling became contagious and he got infected. "You're an asshole," he said through thickly.

Scott glanced at Derek, who was looking, along with the rest of the room, at them like they were both nuts.

But when Stiles' and his eyes met again, he had to bite his lip to stay quiet.

"This is serious," Deaton reminded them.

"I know, I know," Scott said, straightening his face and avoiding Stiles' eye.

"They're acting like they've never met," Deaton said, "It could be any of a number of things. A well-versed wolf could mess with memories, some poison could cause memory loss, or..."

"Or, Something strange event in the past is causing time to unravel, starting at a point near Derek and Stiles' first meeting." Lydia said, “which could mean that this type of thing is happening to more people than just the pair of them, ”to silence.

"We have a...history with this type of thing, dealing with stuff in the past," she said, "and since we're now having issues nearby, it only makes sense that all of these things are connected. Maybe we didn't do a good enough job last time and everything's messing up again."

"Then how do we fix it?" Scott asked, "I don't know about you, but I'm kind of rusty on fixing things that have already happened and then unhappened."

We could go back along Derek and Stiles' time line and find the fault, what and whenever it is. With such small changes happening, it has to be just a thin rip in time, maybe a fault line was created, but as Lydia said, after Ghost, the fabric is weak."

"It will be dangerous, very dangerous, and if we're not careful, time itself could unravel and cease to exist."

"It's not a good sign when your own death isn't your worst case scenario," Allison said dryly, but then she shrugged, "I'm in. How do we do it?"

Lydia and Deaton shared a look, then Stiles started squirming on his chair.

"Wait, you’re not talking about possibly destroying the world just because I got amnesia and forgot that douchetastic assface over there," he said, "you're not, right?"

"No, that would be stupid," Lydia said slowly, "We're doing it because you forgot that Derek at a similar period in time to that when you got thrown into danger in the past, which almost caused the world to implode. So we're just going to have a look-see and make sure that's not happening again."

"Great, that's great," Stiles glared at Derek. "This is your fault, you know."

"My fault how the hell do you—"

Deaton cocked his head towards the front and led them back out to where Danny and Isaac were taking a break from listening to the arguing.

  
  


"I didn't want to say it myself, because it's such a horribly possibility," he said, "but I believe that Lydia's right. I figure that there's a weakness in the fabric of time that's spreading out, like a crack in a windshield, in all directions, or spiraling out like ripples on a pond, sending waves backward and forward in time. We need to discover the exact source, and the only lead we have are them," he cocked his head back towards the other room, where raised voices were coming from, and where Danny and Isaac started back with identical sighs. "If this is what's happening, then it's spreading through time and space, spider-webbing out, very quickly."

Lydia says smart stuff:

"and it's not like we can put an ad in the paper asking people if they've randomly forgotten broad periods of their life. Let's work fast," Lydia said simply.

Scott didn't know where to start, so he just went with the first word that flashed through his mind in big, red capital letters.

"How?"

Lydia took a deep breath in preparation and Scott almost wished he hadn't asked.

"The universe is made of matter, of the elements. And when you use certain things that contain certain elements, they can interact and cause stuff to happen that sometimes appears to be mystical and magical, like the iron stuff that appears to have solid and liquid properties at the same time. It isn't easy to explain, and it's freaky, but that doesn't mean it's not a part of the natural order. We, as people, still don't understand the basic building blocks of the universe; string theory tries to explain it, but we're not there yet. Until we get that basic understanding, we're gonna keep pointing to things we don't understand and screaming "Witchcraft!" It's just the way people react to things that scare, confuse, and titillate them."

She paused for a moment.

"And that's not even getting into quantum mechanics where things can be in two places at once, move backwards and forwards at the same time, and act even crazier than what we're used to."

“How do you know all this? And what does it have to do with what I asked?” Scott asked, his head already starting to hurt.

Lydia lifted her head, thinking. "I got interested in all of this stuff when I was younger. Something just struck me, and I started researching. I've been learning ever since. College is a boon, with physicists and meta-physicists. It's great. I'll introduce you to a few people if we don't die horribly or destroy the universe.”

Deaton couldn't hide a smile. "It is a delicate thing, dancing the line between our craft and physics, but we'll require both in order to find the source. But it will take time."

"And in the meantime, slipping back in time and checking on Derek and Stiles at their first meeting should give us some good information."

Deaton actually chuckled. "You make it sound so easy."

"It isn't? I've had a little practice. Warping time's not so tough, as long as yo work fast."

Allison narrowed her eyes at Lydia. "We haven't been through time...haven't worked with it since Ghost. Except for that one time with the...but that turned out to be mind-warping metaphysical psychedelic trip, and not actually real."

Lydia widened her eyes innocently, in a way that Scott knew was dangerous, very dangerous.

"I had to try it out," she said, "I read some stuff, and made some theories of my own. Just think of it: I could go back in time and buy vintage before it was vintage!" Her eyes widened a little more. "Not that I've done that because that would be irresponsible and immoral."

Scott covered a grin. "Not to mention the butterfly effect."

Everything in the room paused as everyone studied him. He sighed.

"Yeah, I said a smart thing; stop looking at me like that."

Lydia glanced at him, and then away. "It was just a little experiment...how could I resist? And it's not like I almost disintegrated the space time continuum in the name of fashion,” she said quickly, “that was a long day,” she added quietly, “months of the same day on repeat, actually. Time loops,” she sighed.

Scott's mind was reeling from that little bit of information, and he could tell by Deaton's crinkled brow and Allison's boggling eyes that he wasn't the only one.

Lydia cleared her throat. "So? Back in time now?"

  
  


Scott didn't really know what Lydia and Deaton, with the occasional comment from Stiles yelled through the door, were doing. He let their lines drawn in silver powder and the burning of herbs and spices wash over him, just as their words flowed over him. He didn't want to understand what exactly was going on.

Because if he did, that would make it too real, too dangerous, and the seriousness of the situation and all of the things that could go wrong would wash over him and he really needed to focus instead on what needed to be done. so he pretended not to hear the conversation about protective barriers, metaphysical bungees, and hematite and magnetic fields.

He stood in the center of a circle, with three lines swirling out from it in opposite directions, when Lydia motioned for him and Allison to do so.

“make your own time travel spell kits don't exist yet! we're having to wing it! the other one used Derek's love for stiles to send him back. and there is no modern person trapped in the past for this to pull you back to.”  
He took a deep breath.

The sweat trickling down Lydia's brow and Deaton's look of fierce concentration showed him the stakes he didn't want to know. And his heart started pounding. At his side, Allison's breathing was quicker than normal and he felt a hand slide into his own. He glanced at her and gave a reassuring smile that felt more like a stretch of muscles than anything genuine. She gave his hand a squeeze, and he managed to get his heart under control as Lydia stepped over her pattern, into the circle beside them.

"Are you sure about this?" Deaton asked, kneeling and holding the burning tufts of sage near one of the legs of silver powder. Smoke partially obscured his face.

"It's now or never," Lydia said in a breathy imitation of her normal tone.

Scott glanced at Allison, and then nodded when she did.

Deaton hesitated a second longer, then dropped the sage onto the powder and backed away quickly.

Nothing happened.

Smoke continued to curl up from the smudging stick, as it lay over the powder.

Scott relaxed.

And in that second the powder caught, in all three legs at once, and curled up to the circle, so they were engulfed in knee-high flames of deep blue with flecks of yellow.

The flames grew higher and higher, until Scott worried that they would catch the roof of the clinic afire. But when he looked up, all he saw was darkness, and all he felt was the blistering heat of the flames.

"Don't move," Lydia said over the hiss and crackle of the fire,"not a centimeter."

Scott squeezed his eyes closed and tightened his grip on Allison's hand, focusing on not moving.

And then he was cold. The flames were gone and the air was icy in their absence.

He peeked one eye open, and then the other.

They hadn't moved, but everything was different.

The clinic was dark, empty, and still smelled of fresh paint and sawdust and brick. It was silent, not an animal in the cages and the room was nondescript and clean.

Scott realized he was still squeezing Allison's hand and let go quickly.

"Sorry."

"It's okay," Allison said, craning her neck around to look at the ceiling, where black scorch marks marred the clean surface. She turned to Lydia. "Is it safe?" she asked, looking down to the blackened dust spread over the floor.

Lydia was ruffled and her hair was flyaway. Her hand shook as she brushed it back from her face. "Yeh-yeah, it should be," she said, straightening her shoulders and flipping back her hair before stepping resolutely out of the circle.

Allison let out a deep sigh when nothing happened and Lydia spun back around gracefully, smiling. "I told you it would work," she said, fear starting to sink away, behind her eyes.

Scott went next, on the other side, stepping over a leg of the design as Allison stepped out of the other side. And they stood, staring at one another, from each point, for a long moment.

Until headlights flashed on the walls around them as a car sped by the newly built clinic.

"Let's go," Scott said, turning to leave because he didn’t want to think too much about what had just happened, and about what the trip back might be like and how it cold all still end.

"Wait!" Lydia said, fear shooting back up into her face very quickly. "We just, need to go over some things before we get out there," she said more calmly.

"It's the butterfly effect, like Scott said, right?" Allison asked, "we need to do as little as possible while we're here."

"It's not just that," Lydia said, "We're all here at this point, it's, i think, freshman year for us right now, so we need to avoid interacting with ourselves, our families, and our friends as much as possible, unless it's an absolute necessity."

"If only we had an invisibility cloak," Scott muttered, then looked up sharply at Lydia, "there aren't..."

"There are high tech chameleon things in existence, but they're super expensive and I haven't even seen one myself," she said with a shrug, "and as far as metaphysics is concerned, I haven't had any luck there either."

Scott shrugged.

"It was worth a shot," Allison said comfortingly. "Time to go?" she asked as she turned to Lydia.

"Sure," she said, "just keep everything that I said in mind."

  
  


Outside of the clinic, the air was cool and smelled of ozone. The rain had just stopped because the roof was still dripping and ripples were still spreading from the puddles in the parking lot.

"I guess we just had into town and try to find Derek and Stiles," Lydia said, stepping lightly over the puddle in her high heels and starting down the street.

Scott could tell, as he filed in behind Allison silently, that the moon had set and the sun was close to rising. He felt cool and calm, despite the shock of being thrust backwards in time by flames.

They had barely reached the sea of shops and streetlights when the earth shook around them and Lydia clutched the brick side of the nearest building to steady herself.

"What the..."

"Earthquake," Allison said sharply, reflexively grabbing hold of Lydia's hand.

"No," Lydia said breathlessly, as the earth shook more, and bright while light crackled through the air soundlessly. Thought it was just lightning from the passing storm, but...

They heard a loud rumble of conversation, as if they were in a crowded stadium instead of standing on an empty street in the first hours following the dawn.

Scott heard the faint trickling of music and children's laughter, saw a millisecond of a street packed with cars, trucks towing paper mache monstrosities of garish colors, and heard the drumbeats become loud and thrum through him before it was quickly over.

The earth stood still. The only sounds were their own ragged breathing and the peaceful splashing of rain drops as the clouds opened up again.

"Wait," Scott said, trying to recreate the image in his mind's eye. It was a parade, and the floats were rustic and autumnal. "I remember that parade. Mom and Dad took me. We saw the floats, the marching band, but we had to leave before I got to see the end because..." his throat closed as he remembered the argument his parents had had. As he remembered the fear that he had done something wrong and they were mad at him. His dad had just walked away, and him mom had been livid. He tried to brush the memory away.

"What the hell was that all about?" Allison asked, then realized she was still holding Lydia's hand and let go.

Lydia rubbed her hand over her face, still a little thrown.

"It might be time ripples,” she said, "though I haven't ever heard anything about them from a physicist or a meta." She shrugged. "If that is what that was, then we are close to the wound. Which means that stuff like that will keep happening. And who knows how dangerous it could get. That was just a passive flash. But there might be other things that could do some real damage."

Allison pursed her lips. "So, you're saying we have to find Derek and Stiles amidst this strange, confusing, anomalous time stuff, not get caught up in it, avoid everyone we know, and somehow get back to our present without destroying the universe?

"And also before we start to lose our own memories," Lydia said matter of factually.

She looked from one of them to the other when they gave her blank looks.

"Did I not mention that? The longer we're in the past, the less of our own futures we'll remember. It's a way that our minds try to cope with and correct our displacement. I thought you knew about Derek and Stiles' stories after Ghost. I have a journal, if you want to leave yourself notes, in case your memory starts to slip before we can get out of here.”

Scott and Allison shared a look. He cleared his throat.

"I have a feeling we're in too deep."

Allison let out a quiet, humorless laugh. "I think it's too late to do anything about it now. We just have to tread water and hope not to get caught in a riptide."

 

After finding a place to stay downtown, they managed to get a few restless hours of almost sleep.

Scott didn't like the ideas of staying still so long, but Lydia needed the time to do some testing and try to figure out how much danger they were in. and it would probably be a bad idea to sneak into stiles' house at half past midnight a half dozen years ago.

  
  


The sun was high in the sky and shining too bright for Scott. He was starting to feel groggy and sluggish due to lack of sleep and the stress that was starting to get to him. Allison and Lydia followed him out of the skeevy little motel and onto the still soggy street.

"Now what?" he asked.

"it's time to start Operation: Fuck Stiles and Derek,” Lydia said dryly, as if she were feeling the same way that he did. But she mentally shook it off and went from tired and world weary to chipper and sassy in a few seconds flat. "If we can find them, then we should be that much closer to the source. And, if we're lucky, just getting them back on the right path, making them meet and fall for each other, as it happened in our history, might be enough of a push to fix whatever is wrong here..let it auto-correct”

“but doesn't auto-correct just screw things up most of the time...”

“yeah., let's not think about that...down that path lies despair and universe exploding.”

“Let's try to get this to work,” Allison said, pulling her hair back from her face into a quick, untidy bun. Scott loved it when she wore her hair like that. Then she glanced around and noticed him staring and he looked away quickly.

"So, it's freshman year, right? Which means past-me just got bit by Derek not too long ago. Which means we need to keep an eye out for me, because I was dangerous back then, and Derek shouldn't be too far away. That was the point where he was doing the 'the bite is a gift and I'm fighting you for your own good' stuff."

"Right," Lydia said, "so maybe you should go look for Derek while Allison and I try to track down Stiles."

"Alright," Scott said, though he felt a little uncertain about being on his own in a past where anything could happen and Lydia was the only one who had any idea what was going on. Even though she'd admitted the night before that any information she had would be pure guesswork.

Her presence, and Allison's of course, were comforting. And even though he was walking down familiar streets, cutting across familiar lawns, and trying to track a familiar scent, he still felt awkward, endangered, and out of place.

He heard a sharp noise and his phone blared at him, making him jump.

"We found Stile," Allison said in an excited voice, a hint of a laugh warming her voice. Scott checked his watch.

"I've just been gone five minutes," he said, "how did you...wait, how do our phone still work?"

"No idea," Allison said.

"But they really shouldn't..."

"We just went backwards in our own time line and you've turn into a wolf once a month for the past several years, and you're worried about how your phone's working? Gift horses, Scott," she said quickly.

Scott shrugged. She had a point. "So, how did you find Stiles so fast?"

"He found us, actually," she said, "we were walking down the street and he rushed up to us, to Lydia actually, and..." she giggled, "he mistook Lydia for her past-self, and then when he realized she was older, he mistook her for her mother which made it even worse, so he almost fainted from embarrassment before she took pity on him."

"What did you tell him?" Scott asked, raising his head to the wind when Derek's scent grew sharper all of a sudden.

"The truth," she said, "part of it. Just that we're here to help, and that he wouldn't believe the whole truth even if we told him, though he does know that Lydia is Lydia from the future."

"Why did you tell him that!"

"We didn't!" Allison said defensively, "he figured it out all on his own!"

"Okay, fine, sorry. Just, can you..." Derek's scent got even stronger and Scott sniffed the air again, looking around the corner of the tin shed.

Only to be hauled backwards and slammed against the side with a metallic clamor. He felt claws pierce his shoulder and was suddenly staring into Derek's glowering face. He'd forgotten how tense and angry Derek was before he got laid.

"Who are you and why do you smell like Scott?" he growled, eyes flashing red threateningly.

"Dude, I am Scott!" he said, "I'm just from the future to help fix..." he trailed off, "damn it, Allison's gonna kill me." He'd just blabbed exactly what he'd just snapped at her about almost-telling.

He let out a deep sigh and Derek loosened his grip, claws detracting as he stared at Scott in confusion.

"You're joking, right?" he asked, though a lot of the suspicion was already fading as Scott's heartbeat stayed strong and steady. "One Scott is enough of a handful, but two..."

Scott was struck by a sudden idea. He sent a quick text to Allison, and then turned back to Derek.

"So, you were trying to find other-me, the me you just bit, weren't you."

Derek rolled his eyes, “Yeah, I'm trying to find him, what's that got to do with you," Derek hesitated, "besides the obvious."

"Oh, I just know where he's going to be. Since he's me, right, and I remember where I was when i was him."

"Right..."

"So, do you want my help or not?"

Resigned, Derek sighed. "Sure, why not. I don't see how this could possibly go wrong."

Scott smothered a triumphant grin and gives him directions to s specific street and intersection, near a certain motel where a certain person should be waiting for Derek, if Allison—Scott got a text from Allison.

'It's on. Meet us here, to watch it go down.'

Scott glanced up at Derek, who was studying him suspiciously. "You go on," he said, "I have something I need to take care of,"

"Fine."

When Derek turned away, Scott called him back.

"Wait, make sure not to tell other-me about me. If you see me. Him."

"If?"

"When. I meant when you see him." Scott said quickly, and started walking briskly away before Derek could question him.

He went a few blocks down and doubled back, heading back to the motel, where Lydia and Allison were surreptitiously guiding Stiles to a similar intersection, and then following him at a distance.

Operation: Fuck Stiles and Derek, Step One: Get them to meet, and talk, was underway.

Maybe if they could get them to start talking, it would set the time-train back on its tracks.

Scott grimaced. He really needed to work on his metaphors.

  
  


Scott, Allison, and Lydia were stationed in a shop across the street from the meeting place, where Stiles was standing around, hands shoved in his pockets, looking around for Scott, who he thought he was meeting. Derek quickly stalked into sight, scanning the area for Scott, who he was supposed to find nearby.

But his eyes settled on Stiles instead, and he made a sharp path for him.

Scott pumped his fist in triumph, and then ducked behind a clothing rack as Derek caught the motion out of the corner of his eyes and glanced around.

Allison covered a laugh and pretended to look through the clothes that Scott was hiding behind.

"I'm awesome," he breathed, "I knew it would work!"

"Not if you keep talking and distract him from—oh, those shoes are cute!" Lydia said, turning to the display before catching herself and getting back on task.

"Objective one accomplished," she said, and Scott peeked back up to see Stiles and Derek staring each other down and measuring each other up across the street. Derek stood absolutely still, one hand tightening into a fist and loosening repeatedly while Stiles stared with his mouth hanging open.

Then Stiles glanced around, probably for Scott, before jerkily striding down to Derek and starting to talk.

"What are they saying?" Allison whispered, and Lydia moved in closer to hear his answer.

"Stiles is..." Scott hesitated, "he's calling Derek a creepy pedo-wolf who bit his best friend and turned him into a slavering beast and that he won't—and now Derek's saying that he didn't bite me—and now Stiles is calling him a liar—and now Derek's eyes are going red—and Stiles is daring him to—and Derek just punched out the ice cream parlor's window. And now they're both running."

All three of them watched as Stiles and Derek took off in opposite directions as the proprietor of the frozen dessert establishment rushed onto the street.

Scott choked back a laugh, unsuccessfully.

Lydia sat down on one of the shoe place benches.

Allison stared at the proprietor took off down the street after Stiles.

"This is impossible! They are impossible. The universe is going to explode because they can't stop bitching long enough to realize it's all sexual fucking tension!” Lydia hissed to them, under her breath. Not that it would have caused a scene. Most people in the shop were watching as the ice cream lady grabbed Stiles by the ear and started dragging him back to her place of business.

“Maybe it's not that big of a deal,” Scott said, seeing a flash of leather and dark hair in the alley nearby, watching from their side of the street as Stiles was blamed for his crime, "if they don't..."

“If they don't get together, this crap won't even have a faint chance of self repair. If they don't get together, they won't bring the rest of us together. If the LSA doesn't get together and start fighting evil, to be completely objective, the world will end.” Lydia said.

“But the Ghost thing happened because Stiles had access to the place, because of Derek, and if they don't get together, then maybe none of that will happen.” Allison said.

“Right.” Lydia paused “but if the Ghost thing doesn't happen, then we won't join forces to create our awesome evil fighting thing. And we've saved the world a lot of times."

Scott felt very tired all of a sudden. ”Why's it got to be us? Other people will probably take our place, if things turn out differently.”

“And what if they don't? Is that a risk you're willing to take? Besides, I like my life. It's dangerous and exciting.” Lydia said, crossing her arms, marking the matter closed.

“And you can break the laws of reality to go shopping,” Allison said, her cheek dimpling.

Lydia pursed her lips, but it didn't hide her grin. “hat's not all i did. i saw the sights, immersed myself in a different culture. pause. But...That is definitely a plus.”

  
  


Scott noticed when Derek disappeared from the alley next to them, but then a moment later shrieks of panic tore through the air from multiple sources.

And then Derek was out in plain sight, sprinting across the road at wolf speed, narrowly avoiding getting hit by a car, as the lady who had been lecturing Stiles shoved him away, pointed to an unclear form, and clutched her chest.

Scott watched as Stiles turned slowly around and stared where she'd been pointing.

Scott could tell that there was nothing there, but he could also see it. It was a shape with a shadow, but it was damn-near clear. Transparent. And it wasn't the only one. There was one approaching the cashier as she slowly backed herself into a wall, and it kept going, strides long and sure, as it walked nearer and nearer, and then straight through her with a high-frequency shrill that made Scott's ears ache, though no one else seemed to notice it.

He looked back to see Derek shove Stiles away from the weird blob thing, completely shifted, and then look at the lady, who ran back inside her ice cream shop.

And then ran back out, screaming, hefting a chair over her head. Derek was snarling at the nearest blob, crouching a little in preparation to attack, as Stiles stared at him slack jawed.

When the lady hit him over the shoulders with the metal chair and bent it. He fell to one knee and looked back at her incredulously as she dropped the chair.

"I was trying help you! Get out of here!" he said. He didn't have to tell her twice.

As the lady took off, Derek turned to glare at Stiles, who choked mid-guffaw.

"Sorry, serious situation," he said, "what are those things and how do we kill them?"

And then Scott was shocked back to reality as another blob plopped up right next to the three of them. It was gray and unclear, like a ghost.

He knew he couldn't attack, so the three of them grabbed at each other and took off out of the shop. They had an unspoken agreement that it should be better out in the open.

But then Allison and Lydia took off in one direction as Scott saw Stiles hefting the metal chair at one blob as Derek charged at another.

In an instant he made the decision, and instead of following the others, he took off for Stiles and Derek, planning on grabbing them and catching up.

"Stiles!"

Scott looked over his shoulder as a familiar voice cried out, but cringed as he met his own eyes.

"Oops," he muttered, and raced younger-him to Stiles and Derek.

"You can't fight them!" He called, and they stopped to stare at him.

Derek stared at him, and other him, "holy shit you were telling the truth."

"Yeah," he said, looking away quickly from Stiles as he pointed at him, and then other-him, and then at both of them with crossed arms.

"You—and you—but you..."

"What are they?" Derek asked, inching instinctively in front of young-Scott and Stiles s one of the blobs got closer.

Scott really wished Lydia was there.

"I don't know. And I don't know if they can hurt us. I saw one lady fall over after it touched her, but she might have just fainted."

"Or it might have eaten her soul," Stiles said quickly, bouncing on his toes, "can we please get out of here?"

Derek didn’t need much prompting. He took off down the nearest alley, where there were no blobs, followed by the others, with Scott taking the rear.

But Scott heard cursing a few moments later and slowed to a walk as he caught up with the others.

“What did you do?!” Stiles cried, glaring at Derek.

”Me? You're the one who turned left instead of ri-”

"Guys, stop it!” Scott snapped, at the same time as other-him, and got freaked out looks from Stiles and Derek.

"That's—that's just creepy. Please don't do that again."

"Sorry," Scott said, "I can..."

"Scott," Derek said quietly.

"What? I was apologizing!" But Derek wasn't looking at him.

Scott turned around slowly to see other-him's eyes glowing yellow,teeth pointed.

"Oh great, this is great, stuck in a dead end alley with two—three werewolves and invisible demon things trying to kill me."

"Stiles, you're not helping," Derek said softly, as Scott approached...himself.

"I know this is freaky<" he said in the same soft tone as Derek did, "but you have to get control of yourself."

Scott growled at him.

"Dude, stop it. I'm you, and if you just give me a minute..."

Scott snarled at attacked himself.

Scott didn't want to hurt himself, so he just moved with it, letting younger him press him to the grimy wall and growl in his face.

But then he caught a whiff of perfume and heard two sets of sharp footsteps running their way.

Young-Scott's eyes went wide and his face slipped back to normal.

"Allison?" he breathed, as she, older her, strode into the alley with Lydia at her side, crossbow out and drawn.

"Hello, Scott," she said, smiling at the younger him, and Scott felt a fiery roil of jealousy turning over in his stomach. Even though he knew it was weird and pointless.

Young-Scott let him away from the wall with a muttered apology.

"Okay, somebody really needs to let me know what going—uuugh!" Stiles shrank back from the dead end, where one of the blobs had just walked through and stumbled into a broody looking Derek, "aaah! Damn it, what the hell?" he cried plaintively.

"They can't hurt you," Lydia said.

"Oh, thank god," Stiles said, shoulders sagging in relief.

"Yet," she added, "at the moment, from what I can gather, they are just people from another time causing bubbles in the fabric of our time, because everything's weakening. Like echoes of things that have already passed. If they start to pour through, then we have a problem because that will mean that time itself is unraveling beyond repair."

Stiles inched away from the bubble person as it scratched its ear, and then started walking again. "Why couldn't you just stop at it can't hurt us," he muttered.

He turned to glare at Derek. "That is all your fault."

"My fault? How the hell do you figure that?"

"Every bad thing that's going on in my life can be traced back to you. You just got me banned from Penelope's Parlor, you bit my friend and turned him into a wolf dude, and you're still screwing things up!"

Derek rolled his eyes so hard his whole head moved. "Let me clear things up: yes, I got you banned from the ice cream parlor, but that's because you made me lose my temper. Yes, I gave the bite to Isaac, yes, I'm talking to others about joining the pack, NO I didn't bite Scott! How many times do I have to say..." Derek took a few deep breaths and gave up on the argument when Stiles just crossed his arms and shook his head.

"Never mind, it's pointless," he said, "and we have more important things to deal with." He looked to Scott, Lydia, and Allison, "Like you. And what the hell you're doing here."

  
  


  
  


"Its a long story," Allison said.

Derek walked up to her, looked her in the eye. "Tell us," he said softly.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Allison said, her crossbow at her side, but her hand tightening on the grip.

Scott stepped up quickly. "She's right," he said, "everything we say and do right now can change what happens in the future. The less you know the better."

Stiles walked up, bumped into Allison's bow, then into Derek as he tried to avoid the pointy dangerous end. "I agree with him for once," he said, "even though most of the words that come out of his mouth are lies and his face—"

"Stiles, I don't need your help," Derek snapped, turning to glare at him.

"Oh, because you were doing such a bang up job on your own, well allow me to stand back and watch as you expertly question the future people about what the hell's going—"

"Stiles, shut up!" Derek growled, and Scott saw claws shoot out of his fingers before he quickly balled his hands into fists.

Lydia sighed sharply and walked up between Stiles and Derek. Scott stepped back.

"Both of you shut up and suck it up and get along, or you'll destroy the planet," she said.

"Lydia! We can't tell them that!" Allison hissed at her, taking her arm and trying to lead her a few steps away.

"What, tell us what?" Stiles asked as he and Derek moved to follow her.

"It's nothing," Lydia said, after a silent conversation with Allison's face. She tilted her head. "It's just if you don't shut up and let me think, then the world will end while you argue."

Allison relaxed a little, and took the lead. Though more people-blobs were appearing by the moment and they were thick on the ground. She turned to young-Scott first, since he was behaving the best.

"Are you doing alright with this?" She asked, studying his face as he nodded. "Good," she looked to Derek and Stiles, "And you two stay quiet for a minute." After a second she added "please."

Stiles held up his hands, then moved over to talk quietly with past-Scott, giving Derek and Scott a wide berth.

"We know that those aren't ghosts," Allison said, squinting at one of them as it stumbled.

Scott looked closer and tilted his head. He could almost see something other than the strange bubbly outline.

He looked closer, using his sharp eyes to distinguish strange, sharp-angled clothing and limbs that looked a little out of proportion, longer arms and shorter legs.

He squeezed his eyes closed and looked again. All the others looked the same, not quite human, but not far from it either.

"Lydia, there's something...off about them," he said, his voice quiet. He met Derek's eyes, and then saw Derek's stance change, his whole body going from taunt with anger to tense with fear.

"You're right," he breathed, "those aren't people." He shivered.

Lydia looked around at the vague shapes around them, but they were starting to grow clearer, and Scott could tell without straining that they weren't human. Their eyes were bigger, more bulbous, and the faces went to pointed chins and broad foreheads, and hair grew in what looked to be a natural Mohawk from the point of brows down the back of necks.

"Oh, no," Lydia said quietly, "I had it all wrong. They're not from out past...but I don't think they can see us.”

Allison sidled over to Young Scott and Stiles as one of the creatures approached, just in case.

"What is it?" he asked, "aliens?"

"Yes," Lydia said, "and no."

"Jeez, can you please stop doing that!" Stiles called. Then he looked away innocently as if he couldn't hear them.

“Or they're the next step on the evolutionary front, from the future, not the past.” Scott turned back to Lydia.

"They're not from This Earth," she said.

Allison made a muffled noise and Scott turned to her quickly.

"Nothing, it's nothing," she said, "just got startled. Thought one of them looked at me."

Scott noticed the way that Stiles' eyes boggled, and so did Derek, who rolled his eyes, but went over to stand protectively next to Scott, who shirked away, wanting nothing to do with him.

"They shouldn't be able to see us," Lydia said uncertainly, "They're just here because of hairline fractures in the fabric of our world."

She continued when Scott stared at her blankly.

"There's a hole in our universe, a wound, like with Ghost," she said.

"What’s Ghost?" Stiles called over.

Lydia studied him for a moment. "You'll learn about that later," she said ominously, trying to worry Stiles into silence.

Didn't work.

"Fantastic. So this isn't the end of my psycho fun times with the supernatural. At least, if we all don't die in a fiery blaze of glory, then I'll have something to look forward to."

Derek huffed a laugh, and Stiles glared at him, but Lydia continued before he could say anything and start the pointless arguing back up again.

"But this wound," she said, is bleeding, not only through time, as we originally thought, but through space as well, into another universe. These beings we keep seeing are bleeding through, from a universe where mankind evolved from some weird horse-fish thing, apparently. Parallel universe theory. The wound's just weakening the separation."

“How do we help?” Young Scott asked, and Stiles boggled at him.

"That's it? You're happy with that complete and total lack of an explanation? I can't believe this..." Stiles looked around to take in the insanity going on around them.

"You're right," Derek said to Stiles, whose eyes went so wide with surprise that they threatened to fall out of his face. "It's crazy to blindly trust that these people are really what they say they are. That they're here to help things, though things started getting like this when they showed up. That there is anything we can do about this madness going on around us."

"Thank you," Stiles said, cuffing Derek on the arm, then quickly backing away a few steps.

"But I can tell that they believe what they're saying to be the truth and there isn't all that much else to go on, so it is either trust them, or do nothing, and me? I'd rather do something." His eyes locked with young Scott's for a moment, before looking back to Lydia.

"What do we do?" he asked.

Stiles sighed. "Fine. I guess it would be better to possible throw in with the evil masterminds than to just run around pointing at weird things and screaming."

Young Scott nudged him. And then they all turned their attention to Lydia, who had her hand knotted in her hair as she paced back and forth across the alley.

"I don't know," she said, "I don't know."

"Did you bring anything with you that could help us figure it out?" Scott asked quickly, as the minor facsimile of control that they appeared to have started to crumble as Lydia was cast adrift in her own uncertainty.

She stopped stock still and stared at Scott.

"I love you," she said, "in a totally platonic, even though I've seen you naked kind of way."

Allison's head jerked up and she twisted quickly around to stare at Scott. "Wait, she's seen you..."

"We need to get back to the motel," Lydia said quickly, "I do have some things there that may help us out."

And Scott couldn't tell if it was out of desperation that they needed to get to a safe haven and discover what was going on, or if it was because Allison looked like she was starting to see red.

Either way, it worked to distract Allison. At least momentarily. Scott could tell by the look she threw him that the conversation was far from over.

"Stick behind me," Allison said to the past-people, "just in case anything dangerous happens."

Even though two out of three could take care of themselves pretty well, and the third could use his wits to do the same, her tone brokered no conflict. That was new. Allison was really coming into her own, out hunting with her own group, by the looks of it. Scot felt a gleeful bubble of pride at that, but looked away quickly when she caught him grinning at her.

The walk back to the motel was rather uneventful, with Lydia in the lead and Scott in the back, behind Derek. The only thing that happened was Stiles almost falling into one of the strange not-quite-humans as it walked straight through a brick wall and then rushed at him. Derek had to grab him and haul him backwards before he did.

"Good idea," Lydia said, "now that we're seeing them more clearly, they might be able to do more than simply slide through us. And who knows what kind of toxicity or anomalous energies they may have." She sped up her pack, heels clicking more sharply on the asphalt as they crossed the parking lot, avoiding the half dozen creatures, and finally made it to the hotel room.

Lydia immediately dug into a purse only slightly smaller than a duffel bag and came out with a handful of greyish-purple candles.

Scott hesitated as she started handing them out. "Those don't have..."

"What?" Lydia noticed the color, "Oh, no. they're just lavender and amethyst. I like the smell, and also has some restorative and healing properties. But we're just going to be watching the flames. It should burn bright orange."

"But what's that got to do with anything?" Stiles asked, tossing and catching his candle.

Lydia looked at him and he dropped the candle.

"We need to follow those creatures, figure out where exactly they're coming from and going, and see if the candles' flames react to it. If so, then the tear in our reality is getting into the physical realm completely, and not just making it transparent."

"And that would be bad," Scott said, "Right? Instead of looking at things through a window, it would be like the window was broken and things were passing through."

"Exactly," Lydia said, with a rare smile for him, similar to the one she'd gave when she'd accidentally seen him naked. Right before she'd started giggling. Which did wonders for his self esteem there for a long time.

Scott shook it off. At least his metaphors were getting better.

"So, what's the plan?" Derek asked.

"First, we need a map," Lydia said, looking around.

"Already on it," Allison answered, and Scott noticed she was hunched over the desk in the room, with the notepad and half a pencil, scribbling fiercely. "It's gonna be rough..."

"Doesn't matter," Lydia said, "we just need to pinpoint areas of appearance and disappearance of these things."

"So, we go out and stalk the things until they disappear into thin air?"

"And then you come back or call in and tell me what happened." she said.

"Let's get to it! I'm ready. Let's go teach these assholes not to poke their noses in our universe." Stiles said exuberantly.

Lydia bit her lip to hide a grin and glanced at Scott before looking back at Stiles.

"Good," she said, "I need you and Derek to find one moving to the west, back towards the new clinic, and tell me where it goes and how it disappears, and what the candle does."

Stiles groaned. "Why does it have to be him?"

"Here," Lydia dug her phone out of her pocket, "Allison's number is in there; call it when you learn something."

She ignored Stiles' protests, and Scott covered a snicker as Derek strode out and Stiles trudged out after him, grumbling under his breath.

"Allison, could you stick around nearby and tell me what happens within a few blocks of here?"

"Sure," she grinned. "Which leaves Scott and Scott to head east and see how far away this stuff is happening."

"You're having too much fun with this," Scott said, and she laughed, Young Scott looking between them and back to Scott as he lit their candle and headed out.

  
  


Scott left the motel with his doppelganger and headed out in the direction opposite to the one that Derek and Stiles had taken. He could still hear their bickering faintly.

They had to slink down the streets, avoiding police combing the area and concerned and frightened citizens walking the streets with weapons drawn. They saw one incident of a creature getting to close to a citizen, and they tried to shoot it, but the bullet went through, and narrowly missed a cop car and embedded into a telephone pole across the street.

"Stay right with me," Scott said, unnecessarily, to younger-him.

he used his sharp senses to try to find shortcuts or detours around the heavily populated streets, but it was easier said than done as the air of panic and defensiveness and anger had settled over the locals.

He started off in the direction of the school, after one of the creatures striding with great purpose caught his eye. They were walking quickly, so he and himself trotted to keep up.

"So," mini-him started, "you and Allison..."

"What about us?" Scott asked, ducking behind a car as a person with a rifle swung around on their approach before heading off in another direction.

"Are you two still..." he started.

"Oh," Scott said, "kind of."

"What does that mean?"

Scott shrugged. "I don't know. We don't see each other all than much anymore, but we still care about each other, I know that. We've just..." he hesitated, looking back at himself, "grown apart. We can't be together right now. We're both focusing on ourselves, and it's better this way."

"But you won't be apart forever, right?"

Scott looked into those innocent eyes, flashing back to the blazing arguments he'd had with Allison over the past few years. But also on the good times, the fun, saving each others' lives and enjoying each others company.

"No, I don't think we will be," he said, smiling reassuringly. Even though he was far from certain.

He turned his attention back to the creature when it stopped and looked around for a moment. And then he had to squint as his candle's flame burned white brightly, and then almost died as it shrank down and went blue when the creature disappeared.

"Whoa," Younger-him said, "it just disappeared."

"Yeah. Let's find another one, follow it, and then check back in with Lydia."

They followed another one, and then a third, and Scott mentally mapped them out from his memory of the area. As they stood there, two more disappeared, just faded out of existence, right in front of their eyes.

They were disappearing in an arc, once they got out of the busy section of town, a half a mile away from the school. It was like a wall. Like a [word]. Once they passed that certain line, they either ceased to be or disappeared back into their own world. And each time, the candle flickered, spluttered, and then turned blue.

He called Lydia and told her what they had found. She asked for specific locations, and he heard scribbling of a pencil for a moment before she said anything else.

"Yeah, but how many did you see?"

"Just around four or five, why?"

"What's going on?" Younger Scott asked, but he shushed him.

Lydia sighed, and Scott couldn't tell if it was in relief or something else.

"Derek and Stiles are having a rough time of it. There are dozens showing up like crazy." She paused. "All along our path from the clinic to here. And they say that they disappear within a few yards."

"What does that mean?"

"It's not good." She hesitated. "I need you guys to get back here, ASAP. It's bad news."

Scott's heart was in his throat as they ran back, ducking and dodging people and creatures and not even pretending at going human slow.

  
  


His worst worries were realized when he walked inside to see Lydia working on her map, with Stiles and Derek hovering over her, pointed to specific places, and no Allison in sight.

"Allison," Scott breathed.

"What?" Lydia asked absently, then slowly looked up and took in Scott's stricken face and his fear.

"Oh! No!" She said, getting up and glancing out the door behind him and other Scott before closing it. "She's fine, just out looking around for me a little more. i wanted to be certain..."

Scott hurled himself at the nearest bed and flopped down, feeling more drained and exhausted than he had a few moments before.

Lydia sat next to him. "Sorry," she said quietly, though the majority of the room was werewolves who could hear anyway, "I didn't mean to worry you. Allison's fine, but things here...they're not good for any of us." She smoothed out the small tablet of paper over her leg and Scott took a moment to orient the map in his mind. The streets were easy to figure out, and he saw the clinic labeled at the top of the map. And there was a strong scatter of dots trailing down from it, getting more scattered around the hotel, and almost disappearing altogether as they got to the school, where he had been sent.

"Those," Lydia said, "were caused by us. Our trip here, it did some damage." She grimaced. "I knew that was a possibility, but since it didn't matter that much when..." She looked at Stiles and Derek, and closed her mouth, but gave Scott an expressive look.

"Whoa, whoa, what was that?"

Which Stiles noticed.

"Stiles, let her talk," Derek said roughly, and Scott could tell he was almost at the end of his patience.

"Oh no, you are not giving me orders, wolfy," Stiles said, "not after..."

"Shut. Up." Derek said with great restraint, in Scott's opinion.

Stiles opened his mouth, but Scott thought it was time to step in.

"Stiles, Derek's right. We need to focus, instead..."

"Derek is not right. He just wants to keep me quiet because he doesn't want anyone to know I saved his life out there."

"You did not save my life!" Derek practically growled, "it was an old lady with a curling iron, Not A Gun."

"But I thought it was a gun!" Stiles cried, "And so did you, admit it! I saw the look in your eyes when..."

Derek rolled his eyes, "Fine. Just shut up about it and move on. More important things going on."

Scott didn't know who looked smugger, Stiles for his heroics or Lydia because her evil plan might have been working.

Allison rushed in a moment later, breathless, and a knot eased in Scott's gut. She gave him a quick look, then knelt next to Lydia and marked some places on the map.

He tilted his head and squinted at something he didn't expect. To the south, near the reserve, leading to the outskirts of town, there was an even larger mass of dots than those leading to the clinic.

"Yeah, it's bad out there," Allison said, "like an infestation, or..."

"Like infection surrounding a wound," Lydia said quietly. She shook her head. "This is bad. This is like, almost as bad as my worst case scenario."

Lydia drew a dotted curve around the school, where the beings were disappearing, and then another to the east of town, which apparently was clear too. She then drew straight lines through the mass of dots: one to the reserve, another to the clinic, and a smaller one to their current location.

"That is the major disturbance," she said, pointing to the line leading to the reserve. "And we caused this by our antics," she said, pointing to the one leading from the clinic to the center of town, "and this," she pointed to the smaller line, leading from the center to their current location, "makes it look like the rip is spreading."

She looked up at Scott, then at Allison. "Because of us. Us, just being here, is an anomaly. There's a reason our memories haven't started to fade yet. That would be the natural order. We should be relying on notes from our past just to remember what happened to us for the past few years, but we're not. Our little rip is making the cut worse. And it's spreading faster than the fabric of time and space can heal itself."

Her face crinkled around the edges. In confusion, regret, a little guilt, and fear. "Simply being here, we are exacerbating things, making everything more chaotic by the moment. Those beings are following us because we are part of the anomaly and are causing some of it."

"We couldn't have known that," Allison said quickly, throwing Scott a spooked look.

“Allison's right,” he said quickly, “all this means is that we need to figure out how to help, do it fast, and get the hell out of here.”

Lydia took a moment to compose herself before starting to rummage in her purse for a minute, muttering to herself.

"It's a tear, a rip in something without a physical body. How would that be repaired? We have to staple it or sew it up. We need something with healing properties, something that can be burned, turned into a smoke or a gas." She hesitated for a moment and looked around at them.

"I'm open for advice here," she said.

Scott's eyes went wide, and he shared a confused look with himself. He had no idea what to do.

But Stiles was frowning in contemplation. "A rip in the fabric of space-time? How did it get ripped? Is there..." he hesitated, waving a hand, "What if there's still something in the wound. What if it needs to be cleaned out? What if that's why it's spreading, like infection. Maybe we need to clean out the source of the wound."

Lydia's entire demeanor changed back to her normal sure and sharp self as she studied Stiles. "You're right, of course," She said.

Stiles grinned and offered a high 5 to Derek and then slowly lowered his hand. Scott saw Derek's lips twitch into a quick smile when Stiles looked away.

Lydia noticed too, but she was focused again.

"We need to find the exact source and clean up the mess, and then we can heal it up or let it—"

The earth shook around them and they ducked for cover. Scott and his other half grabbed Lydia and Allison respectively and Derek and Stiles reflexively clutched at each other.

"What the hell's going on?" Stiles asked, voice shaking.

"I don't know, but we need to get 0out of here," Allison said, pulling young shot towards the door and then looking back for the rest of them. Scott waited for Stiles and Derek to get out, and then found himself hauled outside by Lydia's surprisingly strong grip.

The earth continued to shake, and people everywhere were looking at a central location near the ice cream parlor down the street. After a quick look around, Scott took off that way without waiting for the others to follow.

Whatever it was, it was happening over there. He pulled up short when a bright light spider webbed across the sky and struck the ground. In the flash, a group of five figures walked towards him, and he felt someone grab his arm as they got closer, and their strange not quite human faces became clear.

Someone nearby screamed, but he heard steady heartbeats from the creatures, and there was something about the closest one...it had curious brown eyes that looked into his own.

It raised a hand, and then the grip on Scott's arm got tighter.

"We can’t communicate with them!" Lydia hissed at him, "it'll weaken things even more,and both of our worlds could crumble!"

She waved her hands erratically, made a shooing motion to them, and the approaching creatures stopped and looked at her inquisitively.

"What do we do? How do we stop them?" Scott breathed, his heart starting to pound.

Lydia pressed something into his hand."Go to the far edge, near the school. If we block them off, then it'll give us time to get back and hopefully find the true source of the rip." She glanced around, tossed one to Allison and younger Scott, then another to Derek and Stiles. “We obviously don't have time to do it here.”

Scott looked down. It was a chrome colored stone, dense and heavier than it should have been.

"What is it?"

"Hematite. Magnetic. Charges electromagnetic fields and may work as a temporary binder like a tourniquet on a limb. Now get going!"

Scott didn't wait around. He glanced back to see Lydia throwing another of the stones at the group of beings, and they slowly faded back to a haze, though they were still visible. Allison took off in one direction, while Derek shoved people out of the way as he and Stiles rushed back down with their own stone towards the clinic.

Then Scott almost ran into a stop sign, so he started paying attention to where he was going.

He felt the energy change as soon as his stone was place, but he still ran back to the point where he left Lydia at full speed. Allison was standing there, hunched over and clutching at a stitch in her side as younger-him took another stone from Lydia and took off where Lydia was pointing him.

She saw him and gave him a small, reassuring smile as he stood there for Allison to lean on and catch her breath.

"I think we'll be alright," Lydia said, sounding more like her normal self. "We have the stones as the stressed points, and a few other local areas, which should throw off the lines of the electromagnetic fields, which should buy us some time."

"Good," Allison panted, propping her head on Scott's shoulder, "that's good."

  
  


Then Stiles and Derek came trotting back towards them again, looking smug and pleased with themselves, especially Derek, who Stiles nudged, and he actually bent and stepped away at the contact instead of just being an immovable brick wall.

"You should have seen this guy," Stiles said, nudging at Derek again, who tried to look indifferent but failed by a few degrees. "I almost got ran over by this guy on a bike and he clotheslines him, and he went for a flip, and it gave me the time to throw that rock thing at the group of those people things who were walking towards us."

"A few inches to either side, and he'd have missed them, and I'm pretty sure they would have ripped the planet apart," Derek admitted gruffly.

"But they didn't! And we make a damn good team!" S

tiles’ fist pumped the air and he turned around, grinning, to Derek.

Time felt like it froze for a moment as they stared at each other. 

And then Scott blinked and Stiles’ hands were gripping Derek’s face, their lips pressed together clumsily.

  
  


Stiles moved away absently and walked a few more steps, past Derek who was suddenly frozen, and then Stiles froze mid-step, arms swinging. So he looked like a cartoon character who'd gotten hit by an ice ray.

His face was the first thing to move, shifting from gleeful triumph to anxious fear and embarrassment.

Derek walked up to the others, next to Stiles. He saw the look on Stiles face.

"Oops?" he said apprehensively.

Derek's face was expressionless for a moment, then his lips quirked up and he pulled Stiles close again, his hands slid up from Stiles’ waist to his shoulders as he moved in closer, pulling him close before kissing him.

Scott looked away quickly, but that didn’t help with the sound effects. He cursed his sharp hearing and briefly considered stabbing himself in the ears before the noises stopped replaced by heavy breathing as they moved apart.

Scott grinned at Allison, who was still leaning on him comfortably.

"As sweet as that was," Lydia said winking at the pair of them, who were looking anywhere but at each other, embarrassed. She turned to Scott and Allison. "We really need to get the hell out of here while we still can."

"Fine with me," Scott said, "so are we going to have to do that whole thing..."

"Oh, no," Lydia said, pulling a glass vial out of her weird purse. It was clear, with just a little green fluid in it. She flipped it over a few times and it started to glow.

"You kids get back," she said to the past people, and stepped closer to Scott and Allison.

"Ready? She asked.

They both nodded.

Lydia gave them a wicked grin. Scott knew that smile. And he feared it. She turned back to Stiles and Derek.

“Listen to me because the future of the universe depends on it. The two of you should fuck. Fuck like no one has ever fucked before. One small fuck for you, one giant fuck for mankind.”

Stiles' eyes boggled and his mouth was hanging open. Derek was staring at him, considering, instead of looking at Lydia.

Scott grinned. "What she said."

And then Lydia dropped the glass vial on the ground and stomped it under the toe of her shoe.

Hot flames erupted around them, and Scott looked up. The blue shy above them darkened to black, and he knew that they were gone, on the path back to their future.

When the clinic re solidified around them, Deaton rushing into the room, as if it had not been long since they had left him, and all three of them were laughing.

Not quite out of amusement, but out of exhilaration, out of happiness to be back, out of relief at still being alive and not destroying the whole of the universe.

Though Deaton did not know that, and he did not look amused.

  
  


“I don't know what you did, or how,” he said, “but there's been a change.” he hesitated, “But it was not enough.”

They all went silent in a sharp, strangled way.

Lydia quickly stepped out of their design, which still appeared burned into the floor, and dug into her giant purse again.

“We know,” she said, grabbing the scrap of paper with her scribbled map and handing it to Deaton.

He glanced over the map, brows raised, then looked at Lydia.

“Those dots are where we saw anomalies, where the fabric of time and space was at its weakest.”

Scott grinned when the door towards the back swung open and he saw Boyd walking out. But Boyd looked tired and drained, so his smile slipped.

“I think they're fine,” he said to Deaton, and they all trailed back into the room with Stiles and Derek.

Erica was untying the ropes that bound Stiles to the chair.

“I called Erica and she trusts your judgment,” Boyd continued, “so we're gonna...” He bent down to unlock the shackles on Derek's wrists.

“Erica?” Scott asked, wondering why her opinion mattered so much.

Boyd looked at him again, amusement shining in his eyes. “She's been interim Alpha for the past day,” he said.

Derek frowned, and Scott agreed. “I thought you would take over, if something ever happened and Scott wasn't around.”

“I could do it, yeah, if I had to,” Boyd said, but then he shook his head, “do you think I want that kind of stress, though? I know what you go through...and once was enough.” He grinned, nudging her. “Plus, Erica's the warrior, and she's been doing great with that other pack.”

“Had a run in with the Alpha himself, today,” she said, grinning, “we ambushed him, sent him running.” 

Stiles did not even notice that he was untied as he tilted his head at Boyd and studied him. “You would be good at it, though,” he said in a soft, considering voice, “you're smart, reasonable, rational, even tempered...”

“In other words, exactly the opposite of the current Alpha?” Derek asked warmly. “Hell, that guy is even having trouble protecting the border.”

Everyone tensed, waiting for the arguing to start, but Stiles just smiled. “You're a great alpha, Derek,” he said genuinely, “you just started out a little rough. We'll figure out that other pack and kick ass, like we always do, if you'll remember correctly.”

“Speaking of thinking back...” he turned to Deaton, “is their a reason some of my memories are kind of liquid-like and gray around the edges?”

“It's probably because of the anomalies and the rip,” Lydia said quickly, “which means that time is in flux, and we need to fix the broken part before it tears completely.”

Deaton looked down at the map again, and sighed.

“Events can leave scars, not only on mind and body, but on locations,” he said, looking pointedly at Stiles.

“No, oh no. There is no way! That stuff is all over. Please tell me I don't have to deal with Ghost again.”

Lydia stepped in gently. “Anomalies, paradoxes, things like Ghost, they leave scars not only on us, and the places, like Alan said, but on time and space itself.” She said, “and we've found the exact source of the wound, Stiles.”

“And we should have expected it,” Stiles groaned.

“Ghost's endless cycle is corroding time, like a screw spinning round and round in a hole growing too large. We have to break it.”

Scott knew what that meant. Stiles had to break it.

He saw Derek and Stiles sharing one of their deep, wordless conversations via facial expressions.

“To fix all of this, we have to go to the source of the wound,” Deaton reiterated, when they were silent for too long.

“I know, I know,” Stiles said, clutching his hair in his hands before Derek moved over and gently pried his hands away, then rested his hands on Stiles' shoulders.

“He's stuck in an endless cycle of life, death, and rebirth by fire. I was hoping a little nudge in the past would throw things into order and heal all of this, but the tear is too large, and the cycle never stops, so it can't heal. It's sending out shock waves, and they're only going to get worse.” Deaton said.

“So, we kill him?” Stiles asked hopefully. But it was a sad, tired Derek who answered.

“No, we help him.”

  
  


 

Stiles knew what he had to do, but he couldn't make himself say it out loud.

“I'll do it,” Derek said softly, but he lowered his eyes when Stiles gave him a soft, kind look.

“It has to be me,” Stiles said softly, “you know that.”

Derek huffed out a sigh.

Deaton nodded. “From what you've said of Ghost, of what really happened when you fell, it has to be you, Stiles.” he said. “You have to be compassionate, understanding.”

  
“Can't I just fuck him instead?” Stiles whined, and jerked up when Scott let out a sharp, sudden laugh.

Stiles glanced at Scott, realized what he said, and then flushed, snaking a look at Derek, who, with effort, let it go.

~

Derek pulled Stiles aside, as much good as that would do from keeping the others in the room from overhearing. He leaned in close to Stiles' ear and murmured, barely audibly.

“You have to love him.”

Stiles face flushed and he glanced up at Derek before looking quickly away and talking swiftly and silently.

”Dude, what-I was just joking about that.”

His face grew darker at the look Derek gave him, at the way that the wolves were pointedly looking in different directions, pretending not to hear them and their private conversation.

”No, you don't understand," Derek said with a twisted smile, "Ghost is sick and twisted, we both know that. The fact that this is happening at all pretty much proves it. But all of this started out of love." He turned Stiles face with a finger, made him look him in the eye. "His fucked up love of a family that forgot he even existed when time chewed him up and spit him back out."

Derek's lips thinned down and Stiles could tell how much he didn't want to say those next words.

"And his love for you.” It looked like they left a bad taste in his mouth. And Stiles felt a lightning bolt of guilt strike him in the gut, along with a twinge of feelings that he couldn't control, and more guilt for feeling it in the first place.

”And that's my fault?” He snapped. crossing his arms and leaning away, preparing to be blamed for everything, for the shit Ghost went through, for the way it screwed with their lives, for the way it sent Lydia, Scott, and Allison skittering across the nation away from them, away from their pack.

Derek's expression was shocked, eyes wide and mouth slack, but the fact that he didn't say anything only reinforced Stiles' guilt.

When the room sank into silence, Scott edged over to him and gave his shoulder a squeeze.

“Of course it's not your fault, Stiles." He said softly, "Each of us has made our own decisions, and we have all done our absolute best to take care of each other and do what we believe to be right. In order to better ourselves, in order to be better for our pack." His eyes were steady and calm as he looked into Stiles' own, and it made him feel better.

"But to get Ghost to chill out, you might need to tell him you love him." Scott's face scrunched with distaste. "Lie if you have to. But it has to be done, not just for us, but for everyone on the planet.”

”We just need to get him out of the cycle,” Derek says quickly, "don't go crazy. Stop it however you can."

Stiles looked between them, and felt the guilt settle down into a low simmer.

“Fuck my life,” he groaned, feeling the importance of what he had to do settle heavily over his shoulders. “So, how do we do it?”

  
  


Deaton pulled out two packs from a drawer, easy access, and it didn't comfort Stiles that he recognized them both. “Lotus root and Damiana, that's a great sign.”

  
  


After going through the ritual led by Lydia and Deaton, using his energy to speed the process, and getting instructions that he would return to their location within an hour, Stiles recited everything that they told him, to let them know he knew what was going to happen.

"You light this fire, it goes swirly, and then it transports me back. This," he lifted up small burnt up piece of wood in a glass vial in his hand, "will make me show up, not at the clinic, but at the Inn, in the past. And as it starts to crumble, then the link between me and the Inn will weaken, and break, and I will be bungee corded back here, probably within an hour. So i need to work fast. Got it. Can we get this over with, now?"

His heart was pounding, and he could tell it was making Derek antsy and jumpy. So the sooner he got out of there, the better. Because it meant his time until he could come back home would be shrinking.

"Are you sure you're ready?" Lydia asked, face tense and pinched with stress.

Stiles blinked a few times as he tried to get his mind to function at its normal capacity.

"Even if I wasn't," he said slowly, not looking at her, "we don't have time to waste on me freaking out."

He looked up at her, saw her brow furrow as she gave him a sharp, curt nod.

"Let's do this," he said.

Deaton did not hesitate. He dropped the flaming bunch of sage on the spindle Stiles was facing.

As all three ignited, he closed his eyes and felt searing flames surround him.

As the world tunneled down to hot blue flames and darkness, he wondered if that was what Ghost had felt, as he cycled from life to death to afterlife and back.

 

Stiles heard the crackling of a fire and the sound of wind rustling through the leaves of trees as smoke assaulted his nostrils.

He opened his eyes to the Inn, hulking in front of him still half alive, but still sending shock waves of memory crashing over him of the first time he had gone on a fool's errand with Scott to investigate the place. Just to do something.

To kill time.

To have something exciting to talk about at school the next day so they wouldn't have to pay attention to the meaningless stream of lessons on subjects he did not even halfway care about.

To prove to himself that he was strong and capable, and that he did not have to rely or lean on the werewolves to do things for him. Because he was just human. And everybody took every possible opportunity to remind him of that all those years ago.

They had learned better in the years since. They, the Pack and their enemies, had learned to respect Stiles, for his mind, for his tenacity, for his resourcefulness and his own kind of strength.

But back then, he had something to prove, and he was just a kid so he ran off into the night with a chip on his shoulder and had found more, so much more, than he had bargained for.

He watched smoke curl up from the walls and the roof of the in, and saw a bright orange lick of flame shoot through a broken window, sending sparks cascading down around him.

Stiles took a quick look at his little bit of burnished wood, and saw that it was glowing white hot. It was back in its own past and reconnecting with its history. which meant he probably had even less time than Lydia had estimated.

So, ignoring the danger, the stupidity, of what he was about to do, ignoring all survival instincts, he gritted his teeth and ran inside the Inn.

He saw Peter immediately, hunching against a wall as a load-bearing column threatened to weaken and fall near the entrance. He was entranced, staring up at it wide eyed and just waiting for the roof and walls to collapse on top of him.

Stiles cursed creatively and profusely, and sprinted across the entryway to Peter, surrounded by flames. He thought he saw the ghost of a figure running out, an impression of long hair, but it might have been his imagination.

Peter quickly woke to reality when Stiles grabbed him by the shoulders and practically drug him away as the roof collapsed over the entrance, and he got a flash, from a memory he shouldn't even have, that the kitchen and another exit was to the left and down a short hallway.

“You came back,” Peter rasped, smoke inhalation making his voice rougher than normal.

”I had to," Stiles panted, wrenching the kitchen door open and pulling them both inside, away from the brunt of the fire.

He knew exactly how that sounded, and felt nauseous, sick with guilt, at the hope those three little words put in Peter's eyes. He got a flash of that hope reflected on Erica's face, from the time-slip that happened with her and Boyd, so many years before. 

But instead of taking it back, instead of running them out of there and not saying anything about it, Stiles reached for him.

He touched him delicately, a soft hand on his wrist, fingers brushing over Peter's pules point and feeling it jump faster.

Peter looked down at the hand, his brows rising, then he curled his fingers around and took a hold of Stiles' hand. He turned it over, palm up, and moved it to his lips.

The fire roared around them, heat suddenly blistering as a wall fell nearby and wood from the ceiling dropped in a domino effect, sparks flying around them.

Stiles' blanking mind kicked back into gear, remembering why he was there. He couldn’t bel8ieve that he forgot, not for an instant.

He cursed under his breath, and grabbed him by the shirt, trying to remember the way to the exit. He pulled a surprisingly pliant Peter away from the flames, stumbling over a burning timber, only for Peter to catch him.

Peter took a moment to grin at him. "Don't worry, I'll catch you when you fall," he said wryly.

And Stiles saw it happen as if it were in slow motion. The roof above them started to give way. One of the pieces holding up the vault in the ceiling, covered in flames, fell towards them. He grabbed Peter by the shirt, the first thing he could get his hands on, and tried to haul them both away, but he wasn't fast enough.

Sparks flew everywhere and Peter's arms shot out from his sides as the piece hit his back, and then tumbled to the floor. Instead of falling face first and laying still, as Stiles' swift mind had given him several painful mental images of already, Peter caught himself on a hand.

He froze there for a lone moment, hair hanging over his face, shirt smoking and burning, on his knees. Until Stiles leap into action, grabbing Peter by the arm and hauling him up, leading them both outside to the open air. He shrugged off his light over shirt and pressed it to Peter's back as he held on to his shoulder for support, smothering the tiny scattered embers that were still searing Peter's skin.

His breathing was ragged, and he made pained sounds at Stiles' every gentle touch of soft cloth and fingers to the burn at the center of his back. 

But he hauled Stiles back around to face him, and looked at him with sharp, studious, and slightly suspicious eyes.

"You saved me," he said, as if it were a puzzle, and not a fact.

"Well, yeah," Stiles said, not even thinking of the task at hand, "of course I did. I couldn't just let you burn. I wanted to do it before, but I couldn't...we couldn't help...We got sent back too soon, to our time."

Before Stiles could do more than take half an inhale, his body was pressed tightly to Peter's burning hot, trembling frame. Lips slid against his own and a feverish cheek pressed against his own face.

And Stiles.

Stiles didn't stop him. He didn't pull away.

Peter was shaking, in pain, and anything that Stiles said would only make that pain worse, and no matter what their past was, and it wasn't all bad, Stiles still didn't want for Peter to hurt.

He felt lost, as if he was enacting some great betrayal by simply letting Peter hold him, kiss him.

As if of their own volition, his arms came up and his hands curled around Peter's hips. He tilted his head at a better angle and opened his mouth to Peter.

He worried for a second, but let his apprehension fade away for that moment.

He focused on the way Peter was holding him, tasting him, clutching his face in his hands, so desperate and wild, but with no hint of fang or claw, and with no thought for the angry burn down his back.

It made Stiles want. In that moment, he wanted Peter. But he knew it wasn't the same. He wanted to feel the same way for him, wanted to ease Peter's pain, but he wasn't sure if he could. He wanted so badly for Peter's endless cycle of agony to end.

When Peter's touch gentled, when he stopped clutching and ran his hands over Stiles' sides before moving back up to cradle his face, forehead presses to his, breathing ragged, in that moment, Stiles knew he had to tell him the truth, before it went any further. Before it ripped them both apart.

“Peter, I...” His voice was small, hesitant.

Peter pulled away slowly, his hands sliding down Stiles' arms to hold his wrists.

“To say it would have been amazing, between us,” he said softly, "would be an understatement." His lips twitched up for a short moment, but the smile never reached his eyes.

Stiles didn't let himself look away.

“I'm sorry.”

Something dark flashed through Peter's eyes, and Stiles got the sharp, sudden impression of deep red anger, but it was gone just as quickly.

Peter shrugged, that false smile tilting his lips again.

“I'll be fine,” he said.

Then, Stiles should have expected it because, hey, he was Ghost, who groped him and tickled his neck with invisible fingers, but he didn't. He pulled Stiles close again, squeezed his ass, and kissed the breath out of him, even as the fire roared and the roof caved in, destroying the Inn completely and sending flames licking higher and higher into the sky.

And the world around them faded to black.

“Asshole!” Stiles called, and he heard a wicked, breathy laugh as darkness enveloped him.

  
  


Stiles watched as flames whipped around him and the world went black, and then as light began to stream through and the clinic walls solidified around him. Everything was a blur of moving bodies and fluorescent lights and the smell of antiseptic and animals.

“Please, for the love of god, tell me that worked,” he said tiredly before his eyes could even focus on the room around him, “that was exhausting.”

“You didn't fuck him, did you?”

Stiles squinted as his eyes finally decided to focus and looked around, expecting the voice to connect with Derek, but it was Scott who he wound up looking at. Scott pursed his lips and held up his hands at the look Stiles gave him.

Stiles tried to keep himself from flushing, but he still felt gritty and covered in ash.

“No! I didn't fuck him," he said roughly.

“Then what did you do?” He heard sharply, from a few feet away. That was Derek, hovering and obviously waiting for him to step out of the circle.

Stiles stepped out, and Derek was at his side in an instant, nostrils flared.

And then he realized why Scott had asked what he did.

Peter's scent. It was probably enveloping him. The thought of that made him feel emotionally drained and irritable. Which excused him for saying what he did. Or maybe not. He was too tired and felt too weird to care.

"What happened?" Derek repeated, plucking at the singed shirt still balled into Stiles' fist.

“You know, what's a nice hand job between friends?” Stiles deflected uneasily, watching as Derek's brows shot down as he studied him. But he obviously caught the tone and rolled his eyes.

But Stiles didn't believe for a minute that that conversation was over. Still, he was skilled in the art of procrastination.

“Are we good?” Stiles asked again, looking around at Lydia and Deaton, and trying to ignore the way the wolves, not just Derek, were sniffing at him.

"He smells weird, but familiar," Erica breathed to Boyd, and he nodded to her. Had they somehow caught Ghost-Peter's scent when they had been possessed at the Inn? Stiles ignored them for the time being. 

"So, is shit still going down, or did I save us from oblivion?” he asked irritably.  
Deaton shared a look with Lydia before speaking.

“It'll take time for the changes to reverberate through...time,” he said. “Through my divination methods, signs of anomalous events are fading, from here and now, at least. Lydia is looking into the more scientific side.”

“It better work. Because I'm not dealing with that asshole again,” Stiles said roughly, trying to distance himself from the feelings of Peter clinging to him, holding him like he was the most precious...

“What's wrong?” Derek asked.

Stiles shook his head. They could talk about it later. Much later. Maybe a few years later. Or never. Right now he wanted to forget what just happened. He still felt raw. It hurt him more than he wanted to admit.

“If the cycle ends, what happens to Peter?” Lydia asked suddenly, musing aloud.

“If he survived the fire-“ Deaton glanced to Stiles.

Stiles nodded.

“He should be free to live his life however he wants,” Deaton says, "in a way that does not create a paradox or destroy the fabric of time. hopefully."

“That's good, right?” Scott asked.

“Who knows?" Lydia shook her head, "There are so many paths he could have taken. The possibilities are endless.”

Stiles froze from doodling a dragon on his palm with the pen he just stole from Derek and studied it. He hadn't felt like drawing in a long time. The pen fell out of his hand and hit the ground with a louder, more reverberating, sound than it should have.

“So, he could still be alive, again?” he asked, his voice shaking more than a little.

He looked around the room, stricken. He was trying to remember if the flash of red he had seen in Peter's eyes was a reflection of the fire, but the memory was already getting foggy and faraway, like a dream he was trying to clutch, slipping through his fingers. But no, he thought harder, it couldn't have been.

Peter had been facing the wrong way, away from the fire.

"Derek," he said roughly, grabbing at Derek's arm, "have you ever seen that Alpha, the one that's been harassing us?"

Derek's brow furrowed. "No. I know they're there, but all I've seen are the Betas. Why...”

Erica moved over to Stiles, sniffed at him again, “It's him, it's the alpha.”

Derek’s eyes widened.

Scott stumbled a step closer, not looking where he was going, and looked at Derek like the world was crumbling around him.

“So, all those times you said that you didn't give me the bite, were you telling the truth?” Scott asked, a rough, disbelieving edge to his voice.

“Yes,” Derek said, exasperated, “I've been telling you that for years! Literally! I knew there has to be another alpha hiding out...” he trailed off slowly.

"It didn't just show up, this alpha," he said quietly, "he'd been here, all along, biding his time and growing his numbers and getting stronger."

“The one with the pack that's been harassing you for the past few weeks,” Deaton said.

Stiles looked from one of them to the other, his mouth hanging open.

“And Peter's alive,” he said softly, trying to deal with the dissonance from relief and apprehension at the thought, “and I saw his eyes flash...red.” 

His face fell.

“Oh, crap.”


End file.
